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2010s,

We check out Jason Statham's latest action heist film Parker & his take on the quintessential anti hero tough guy

There is a line of dialogue in Mad Max that goes something like this:

Fifi: "They say people don't believe in heroes anymore. Well damn them! You and me, Max, we're gonna give them back their heroes!"

I suspect this line was also heard in Jason Statham's agent's office the day the Stath walked into his life. As pretty much single-handedly Jason Statham has revived the flagging tough guy genre. Sure there are others that have dipped in and possibly made a splash but no one else has had the stamina or ongoing consistency to rival him.

I was there the day Statham walked onto the stage to cheers at the The Expendables Premiere when Sylvester Stallone said "Don't encourage him too much he wants my job!"  - too late.

Jason Statham is Parker Film Poster

In the interests of transparency I should start by saying that I am not the biggest fan of Jason Statham's works, yes I have enjoyed some of his films but probably not the ones you like unless they are; Cellular, London, Revolver Crank, The Killer Elite and his other Guy Ritchie films obvs . And yes Parker is exactly the kind of film I would usually avoid - leaving it to those who may appreciate it more.

However my interest in Parker has less to do with Jason Statham's special brand of Kick assery or Jennifer Lopez's special brand of acting and more to do with Director Taylor Hackford the man who made the Richard Gere starrer - An Officer and a Gentleman, Jeff Bridges's  Against All Odds of which I am a huge fan , (and feel is ripe for a updated hardcore remake) as well as the absolutely brilliant mini Godfather Mexican gang epic Blood in Blood Out.

Hackford has a huge catalogue of films to his credit and whilst some aren't really my cup of tea Taylor Hackford combined with a screenplay from John J. McLaughlin the man who helped write Darren Aronofsky's Black Swan, 2012's Hitchcock and is currently working on a Splinter Cell adaptation as well as co-producing Statham's next film, a remake of Heat - not Michael Mann's Heat but the 1986 Burt Reynolds Heat (or Edged Weapons as I knew it growing up) written by the great William Goldman. All good but the real draw of Parker for me - was that Parker was adapted by McLaughlin from a (1962) book by Donald E. Westlake.

Parker Jason Statham is coming

Now Donald E. Westlake, writing as Richard Stark (one of his many pseudonyms) wrote one of my favourite crime noir characters of all time into history - a man called Parker. Westlake / Stark wrote 23 novels about the ruthless thief Parker. I first got to know him as Walker when Lee Marvin played him in Point Blank directed by John Boorman. I love Point Blank it is the seminal anti hero tough guy picture, very few measure up to Walker and the clinical, dark world of mobsters that Boorman creates. In this underbelly criminal empires are run like corporations the largest know as the outfit or organisation, like big business the white collar bosses are on top and soldiers do the grunt work and get their hands dirty. Outside of this are the independents - smaller criminals who work for themselves but have to occasionally deal with Outfit.


Point Blank was an adaptation of Westlake / Stark's first Parker novel called The Hunter. In it Parker is betrayed by his crew and left for dead after a bank job. Of course he comes back looking for revenge and his share of the heist. In itself not an original plot but Boorman constructs a credible stark hard boiled underworld in which crime thrives, he also masterfully manipulates us as he creates moods  and shifts from darkly humorous to savage violence in a flash. This allows Lee Marvin to breathe life into Walker with an incredible amount of brutal ferocity  and efficiency - the likes of which have never quite been matched on screen. In Quentin Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs Michael Madsen's Mr Blonde after a tense stand off with smaller older guy Harvey Keitel's Mr. White who bluntly won't back down - exclaims:

Mr. Blonde: Boy that was really exciting. I bet you're a big Lee Marvin fan aren't ya. Yeah me too. I love that guy. My heart's beatin' so fast I'm about to have a heart attack.

The Lee Marvin he is talking about it the Lee Marvin in Point Blank. For similar examples of rage driven characters hellbent on getting their way see - Chan-wook's Dae-su Oh (Min-sik Choi) from Oldboy as well as Daniel Craig's Bond and Matt Damon's Bourne, there is also an incredibly well shot and choreographed fight scene in Parker in a similar vein to Bond/Bourne fight.  For an attempted carbon copy of Lee Marvin's Walker check out The Rock Dwayne Johnson's Driver in George Tillman Jr.'s 2010 Faster he gets the walks almost right.


Walker is a man single mindedly driven by the inertia of revenge with little regard for the price or personal safety. His path of destruction leads right up the corporate ladder of the Outfit and he has no problem dispensing with anyone and everyone who gets in his way. With one major exception. Parker/Walker is a professional he only wants his share of the ill gotten gains not a penny more or  a penny less - so this makes him somewhat of a conflicted character - a principled yet morally bankrupt man. It also makes  him one of the most compelling characters in the genre.

Parker disguised as a Regular Joe

So Parker is a quite a character  So much so that he was brought back to the big screen in 1999 by Mel Gibson in Payback or  Payback: Straight Up as it is now known -  Payback followed the same story as Point Blank and The Hunter but Parker become Porter and Gibson brought more humour and heart to the role. Both Point Blank and Payback are on my favourite films list.


The Establishing Shot: WE CHECK OUT JASON STATHAM'S LATEST ACTION HEIST FILM PARKER & HIS TAKE ON THE QUINTESSENTIAL ANTI HERO TOUGH GUY 

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