Parker

 Having just completed a grand-scale robbery at an Ohio State Fair, morality-conscious Parker (Jason Statham) and his newly aquired gang of thieves, including Melander (Michael Chiklis), Ross (Clifton Collins Jr.), Carlson (Wendell Pierce) and August (Micah A. Hauptman), begin to talk negotiations on the split of the pot. When Parker turns down the opportunity to be a part of a major jewelery scheme, Melander quite literally flips the situation upside down by attempting to murder Parker. Once August confirms Parker's death, the foursome travel to plan their robbery. However, Parker survives the altercation and sets forth to bring justice to his ex-partners. Having found their whereabouts in South Beach, Florida, Parker soon discovers he'll need local help to scope out their possible theft opportunities. He then enlists the services of down-and-out real estate sales agent Leslie Rogers (Jennifer Lopez), solely to get a first hand tour of the biggest and most important houses in South Beach. Money, bullets and bodies fly as Parker attempts to seek revenge on those who left him battered and nearly dead. 

Jason Statham is a Slinky. Slinkies do just one thing and are used solely on that one task it performs. Sure, you could change the stairs from carpeted to cement to hard wood, even putting this all on a different backdrop, but the source of this "entertainment" is just a slinky falling down some stairs. Jason Statham is just a slinky falling down some stairs.

At least, his performance in Parker seems to confirm this. Statham is used as the next big action star, starring in practically anything with explosions. I'll give credit where credit is due, the man works more frequently than most major actors. Yet, the quality overweighs the quantity and with movies like The Mechanic, Killer Elite, Expendables 2 and Safe, Statham isn't a man who stars in quality pictures. Parker is no different. Right away, Statham's Parker is established as a thief with a heavy moral code: "I don't kill a man unless he deserves it. When I say I'll do something, I do it.". Great, except it's coming from a thief. It all feels a bit contradictory, but it stays the basis of the heavily overlong runtime. Parker might as well be unnamed and just be a man who seeks revenge, save the gimmicky nature of his morals as they never quite come into play enough to warrant the placement of said actual moral code. Nevertheless, story aside, Parker still has the chance to shine with some great actors well familiarized with crime. Right?

If only it were that easy. Chiklis feels out of place as a man who is painted (literally, he was a clown for the first 10 minutes) as a bad man from the get go. No character arc, nada. Even Collins Jr. and The Wire's own Wendell Pierce feel like they lost some shred of dignity partaking in this script. They both just seem dead whenever they appear on screen. But no amount of their acting can help the miserable pairing of Jason Statham and Jennifer Lopez. Neither of them do anything particularily awful in terms of their acting (although Lopez is severely out of place), but the pairing of the two is dreadful. In an unintentionally hilarious clip, Statham plays a rich Texan from Guatemala, speaking in a heavy southern accent while Lopez introduces him to available mansions. It's the little things. Granted, the majority of what doesn't work here is mostly due to bad scriptwriting, the casting of these two comes out of left field and doesn't sit well at all. 

With all this said, is there anything Parker does well? Any good actors pop in? Can you expect any good fight sequences? Sure, there's a Nick Nolte appearance here, a fight where Statham stops a blade with his own damn palm there and a cowboy hat-donning Statham, but nothing that saves Parker from driving in the nails on it's own coffin. 

Incredibly overlong and full of underused talent and overused mismatched pairings, Parker reigns as the biggest "WHAT HAPPENED?" movie of 2013.  Perhaps Statham will soon star in something that brings more to the genre, but Parker is, hands down, not that picture. But perhaps I'm putting too much thought into the action genre. After all, everyone loves a slinky.