"Parker" Review

While Donald Westlake's Parker character (appearing in 24 novels) has been portrayed in films like Point Blank and Payback (where Mel Gibson was "Porter"), the Jason Statham-starring Parker is the first time the man has been named, not that it makes a difference in this bland, generic caper-revenge flick.

Statham is a part of a crew who pull of a million-dollar heist of the Ohio State Fair, but as they make their getaway one of the crew played by Michael Chiklis announces that he needs the whole take as seed money for a Really Big Score he's got planned. Parker doesn't want anything but his share as per the arrangement (Statham always sticks the the deal donchaknow?), so the rest of the gang shoot him and leave him for dead on the side of the road. He's found by a family of farmers and and taken to the hospital where he survives (duh) and sets out on the revenge path.

He beats the info out of others that they're in Palm Beach, FL and posing as a Texas oil man, gets a tour of the neighborhood from real estate agent Jennifer Lopez, who is struggling with bills and on the verge of her car being repossessed.

OK, now it's 3-1/2 months later and I'm trying to clear the backlog of un- and half-finished reviews and I frankly can't remember where I was going with this review which pretty much says it all, doesn't it? Staham gets one really brutal fight; J.Lo is OK in a role that's beneath her; and I recall there was something inexplicable involving her mother which didn't make much, aw, who cares?

Score: 3/10. Skip it.