Movie · 2025 · Crime, Action, Thriller · 2h 8m · R · English
Curator score: 0.9/10 (66.8K ratings)
Even robbers get robbed.
Overview
Expert thief Parker gets a shot at a major heist, but to pull it off he and his team must outsmart a South American dictator, the New York mob, and the world's richest man.
Ratings
Curator score: 0.9/10
IMDb: 5.9/10
Letterboxd: 2.60/5
Metacritic: 46
TMDB: 6.6/10
Director
Shane Black
Production
Team Downey, Amazon MGM Studios
Cast
Mark Wahlberg, LaKeith Stanfield, Rosa Salazar, Keegan-Michael Key, Chukwudi Iwuji, Nat Wolff, Gretchen Mol, Thomas Jane, Tony Shalhoub, Hemky Madera, Alejandro Edda, Claire Lovering, Chai Hansen, Sebastian Carr, Nick Russell, Saskia Archer, Byron Coll, Kat Hoyos, Ava Caryofyllis, Harry Peek
Where to watch
Amazon Prime Video, Amazon Prime Video with Ads
Curator Review
Verdict
A messy but intermittently fun crime caper with flashes of Shane Black’s trademark banter and hardboiled mischief. It sounds more entertaining in pieces than as a whole: lively when the dialogue snaps, flatter when the plotting and tone get overworked.
Best for
Shane Black fans
Viewers who like chaotic heist movies
Fans of cynical, banter-heavy crime comedies
People tolerant of tonal whiplash and big CGI set pieces
Skip if
You want a tight, elegant caper
You dislike uneven tone or artificial-looking action
You prefer grounded crime stories
You need a charismatic lead performance to carry the film
Overview
Play Dirty has the bones of a very good Shane Black movie: rude jokes, criminal scheming, a parade of bad decisions, and a worldview where everyone is compromised. The appeal is in the friction between pulp violence and comic timing, and when it clicks, it’s easy to see why the material attracted him.
Worth noting
But the film seems to keep tripping over its own ambitions. The reviews point to a story that feels overstuffed and oddly mechanical, with action that can be inventive one moment and weightless the next. Instead of the clean snap of a great caper, it often plays like a noisy scramble.
Bottom line
If you’re here for Black’s dialogue, the attitude, and the pleasure of watching crooks outmaneuver each other, there’s enough to make it worth a look. If you want a polished heist thriller with strong narrative economy, this is more likely to frustrate than satisfy.
Top Letterboxd reviews
matt lynch (3★) · 517 likes
On paper the idea of Shane Black digesting the Parker books and turning in a violent, mean-spirited caper comedy sounds pretty much perfect, and indeed the highs are very high. While it's very amusingly all over the place tonally, It's also strangely flat. Like not snappy, and missing a dose of narrative economy, the sort of thing Black normally wouldn't tolerate -- one of his best quirks is how he often even has his characters comment on how his story… more On paper the idea of Shane Black digesting the Parker books and turning in a violent, mean-spirited caper comedy sounds pretty much perfect, and indeed the highs are very high. While it's very amusingly all over the place tonally, It's also strangely flat. Like not snappy, and missing a dose of narrative economy, the sort of thing Black normally wouldn't tolerate -- one of his best quirks is how he often even has his characters comment on how his story… more
davidehrlich (3★) · 502 likes
A crude, formulaic, and timelessly existential collection of paperback crime novels that were published under the pseudonym of Richard Stark, Donald E. Westlake’s “Parker” franchise is the only series of books that has ever been adapted into Jean-Luc Godard and Jason Statham movies (“Made in USA” and “Parker,” respectively), both of which feel equally true to the ruthless concision of their source material. Ditto John Boorman’s violently elliptical “Point Blank,” John Flynn’s sociopathically affectless “The Outfit” (a Quentin Tarantino favorite),… more A crude, formulaic, and timelessly existential collection of paperback crime novels that were published under the pseudonym of Richard Stark, Donald E. Westlake’s “Parker” franchise is the only series of books that has ever been adapted into Jean-Luc Godard and Jason Statham movies (“Made in USA” and “Parker,” respectively), both of which feel equally true to the ruthless concision of their source material. Ditto John Boorman’s violently elliptical “Point Blank,” John Flynn’s sociopathically affectless “The Outfit” (a Quentin Tarantino favorite),… more
wersku (2.5★) · 270 likes
I could happily listen to Rosa Salazar’s history lessons for the rest of my life... Marky Mark is stupid. Also what just happened in the beginning?! I love it.
..I actually didn’t love this. But Black turns it into such a chaotic mess that its entertainment value never really drops, but at the same time, it feels strangely artificial in its own way. The dialogue comes off like it’s rolling off an assembly line, Wahlberg’s eyebrows are permanently twisted, so… more
Michael James (2.5★) · 251 likes
So you’re really f**king kidnapping me, then?No, well, yeah, we already kidnapped you. We are just keeping you. We’re “keepnapping” you.
A mediocre heist action thriller from Shane Black that is entertaining in bits and pieces. His trademark witty banters, some well written dialogues and fun stylish actions keep the show rolling in an otherwise messy forgettable outing.
Marya E. Gates (0.5★) · 248 likes
Sitting at this world premiere with an audience cheering and laughing as the actors shot and killed body after body in the most disassociated manner like they were playing a video game must be what it was like to watch in horror as people cheered while tigers ripped gladiators apart. It’s the morally bankrupt, soulless, blood thirsty imperialist spectacle that we deserve. This is the communal decay Coppola is depicting in Megalopolis. I felt so bad after this screening I literally had a panic attack and had to sit on some random stoop in the rain for about ten minutes before I could even walk again.