“Parker” plays like the bloodiest promotional video ever made for Palm Beach tourism. Stabbings, explosions and furniture-smashing brawls occur at some of the ritziest (and name-checked) locations within the sun-splashed, pastel-soaked slab of Florida opulence. Kinda gives a whole new meaning to the idea of The Breakers.
The city is the setting for an elaborate, $50 million jewel heist as well as some revenge doled out with the usual machine-like efficiency by Jason Statham. As the title character, the anti-hero of many of the novels by Richard Stark (the pseudonym of the late Donald E. Westlake), Statham is stepping into a well-known persona. But he’s not exactly pushing himself outside his comfort zone; he’s on auto-pilot here, despite the obvious physical demands of the part. Parker is the kind of thief who lives by a civilized, self-imposed code — one he expects others to adhere to, as well. But this is the same character Statham always plays: quietly cool, dryly British, powerfully lethal.
