""Movie jail" might not be a real thing, but somehow writer-director Shane Black still managed to land himself in it. His previous film, 2018's The Predator, a messy franchise flick that a few of us enjoyed, was seen as a catastrophic bust; before that, he made The Nice Guys (2016), an enchantingly rambling neo-noir comedy that everyone seems to love now but practically nobody bothered to see."
"It's based (loosely, I gather) on Donald Westlake's Parker novels, borrowing story elements from different installments, although it doesn't have the near-sociopathic terseness that defined Westlake's work. Rather, it's elaborate and darkly zany, the kind of movie in which Mark Wahlberg hands someone back a piece of their ear after it gets blown off. The film opens with a nutso racetrack robbery that spills out into the horse race itself, with cars and jockeys and horses flying (and dying) left and right."
Shane Black suffered career setbacks after The Predator (2018) and the commercially overlooked The Nice Guys (2016), erasing goodwill from his 2013 billion-dollar success. Play Dirty, starring Mark Wahlberg, debuted exclusively on Prime Video with almost no marketing and limited public awareness. The film borrows elements from Donald Westlake's Parker novels while abandoning Westlake's terse, near-sociopathic style in favor of elaborate, darkly zany set pieces. Play Dirty emphasizes jokey banter, ludicrous action theatrics, and escalating, cartoonish violence. The movie opens with a chaotic racetrack robbery that devolves into a deadly horse race and grotesque physical comedy.
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