Shane Black is back. And not a moment too soon.
The filmmaker first rose to prominence by writing some of the most engaging high-concept action movies of the ‘80s and ‘90s, for some of the biggest paychecks (Black’s script for “The Long Kiss Goodnight,” for example, netted him a then-record-breaking $4 million). His scripts where characterized by snappy dialogue, a pair of mismatched characters forced to work together and solve a labyrinthine mystery. Many were set at Christmastime.
But with 2005’s “Kiss Kiss Bang Bang,” starring Robert Downey Jr., Black became one of modern cinema’s most interesting writer/directors. All of the trademarks of his earlier films were present in his debut but they were honed, sharpened and tightly controlled. It felt like a writer whose material had maybe been more loosely adapted by directors in the past, finally getting to bring his script to the big screen in just the way he’d imagined.
Black made “The Nice Guys” in 2016, a shaggy dog detective story originally developed as a TV series that was, incredibly, even better than “Kiss Kiss Bang Bang” as it paired the comedic talents of Ryan Gosling and Russell Crowe. He also made “Iron Man 3,” which remains one of the highlights of the entire Marvel Cinematic Universe. And after a brief misstep with 2018’s “The Predator,” an attempt to “eventize” the long-running franchise that was, by all accounts, beset by unnecessary studio meddling, he returns with “Play Dirty.” It’s streaming on Prime Video right now.
“Play Dirty” is based on characters by crime novelist Donald Westlake writing under his Richard Stark pseudonym, with Mark Wahlberg essaying the role of Parker, an iconic thief in Westlake’s universe and a character that has been played, many times, in the past. (Lee Marvin, Jim Brown and Mel Gibson have all played the character.) This time the character is embroiled in a scheme to steal a priceless statue, much to the chagrin of the New York mob and a South American dictator.
What's New on Prime Video in October
Instead of adapting a single Parker story, Black and his collaborators Charles Mondry and Anthony Bagarozzi, decided to create a new Parker mélange featuring elements from actual novels, including the character of Grofield (played in this film by LaKeith Stanfield). They also set the story in modern day, resisting the urge to set the story in the 1960s, when Westlake wrote the original novels and where other adaptations, like Darwyn Cooke’s incredible graphic novels, took place.
“I think it seemed like a natural trajectory to take, because there have been Parker movies in the past. They don’t always call the character Parker, but this series of books and this character has been the subject of any number of movies in every generation – from Lee Marvin in ‘Point Blank’ to Robert Duvall in ‘The Outfit,’ then on to Mel Gibson in ‘Payback,’ and then Jason Statham, most recently, before us,” Black told TheWrap. He didn’t want to “go back and insert ourselves in what was already going,” and instead to strove to make a Parker story “for now.”
Still, there’s a timelessness to the character that Black fully embraced. “Parker’s old school. You won’t see a single frame in this movie of someone suspended upside down with laser-vision goggles. It’s not the technological thief. It’s the visceral, everyday, blue collar thief,” Black said. “That’s what makes Parker good, despite any and all considerations of the era in which that story is set, is just the fact that he’s the little guy.”
Black’s decision to make a new Parker story stemmed from the fact that the novels are, in his words, “not huge in scale.” With the option that Black had, he had access to all of the books. “We thought, Well, we can just pick and choose,” Black said. They loved much of Westlake’s dialogue and were thrilled to give Parker some additional zingers.
Then they asked themselves, What’s missing?
“Nothing, really, except that these movies and books are small, and is there a way into a more cinematic version, where we start small with Parker, and then they get onto a heist, and even Parker and his crew are amazed by how elaborate and big this thing is that they’ve stumbled into,” Black said.
He and his cowriters were not the biggest heist fans in the world. “We don’t have posters of heist movies in our houses. We like thrillers,” Black said. They formulated a new approach, with all of the elements of a heist movie still present, they would expand the world to make it a story about a guy up against the mob and what Black describes as a “cat-and-mouse game between him and the villain.” In this new framework, they were able to craft something that felt more like a traditional thriller and less specifically tied to a heist.
In many ways, “Play Dirty” feels like a throwback to those earlier Black projects, things like “Lethal Weapon” and “The Last Boy Scout.” It’s easy to imagine picking up “Play Dirty” from your local video store in 1992. It’s best enjoyed sitting in front of your television, with an extra-large pizza from your favorite delivery place and a 2-liter bottle of sugary soda. It’s not an intentional throwback or a clammy pastiche; it just has the spirit of your favorite late-‘80s, early-‘80s action movie, down to the score by Alan Silvestri, who composed the music for “Predator,” “Back to the Future” and “The Delta Force” (among many others).
Black said that he doesn’t think of his style as a brand but is instead concerned about the material that he and his co-writers are servicing.
“It’s just what we think is fun, me and my friends and what we think will be surprising. We like twists. It’s not so much that I offer anything in by way of brand. It’s just you put setups and payoffs in it. You have reversals and twists and you try to get some zingers going and throwaway dialogue,” Black said. “It just flows in certain pathways. I like what the cast brought to this, too. They bring little sparks, little flashes, little bits of life.”
In fact, he was drawn to the material because these characters are so relatable and human.
“These characters who have these little quirks and foibles. And what is great to me about Parker in general is that these are not James Bond types. They’re everyday heroes. They just happen in the midst of burning the toast and spilling the Wheaties and arguing with their family. They’re experts at something, and it doesn’t mean that they’re experts at life,” Black said. “They’re completely screwed up and dysfunctional. But one thing they’re good at, and that’s the thing they come together to do, is the everyman version of what would traditionally be a Bond-type adventure.” In “Play Dirty” everyone is flawed and human and fascinating, dealing with increasingly disruptive curveballs from all sides.
And Black and his team were dealt a curveball when Black’s collaborator from “Kiss Kiss Bang Bang” and “Iron Man 3,” Robert Downey Jr., who originally signed on to play Parker, dropped out of the movie shortly before production began, leaving them to call on Wahlberg to fill the void. Black said the script didn’t change at all. He said that the first draft he considers the “writer’s draft,” since he never pictures an actor. And that original script was made available for an actor – any actor. When Downey left (he remains a producer on the film), Wahlberg came in and “made this thing aggressively his own.”
“I think he was really drawn to the sense in the material of this guy with a code of conduct. I think Mark also liked the idea of playing a criminal. He’s a very likable guy. I mean, people love Mark in the ‘Ted’ movies, for instance,” Black said. “But this guy is an anti-hero. This guy is not a good guy, but it’s tempered by the fact that he does things a certain way for a reason, and he has a code he lives by. And the other criminals he’s up against are much worse. They’re much brighter and sadistic than he could ever be.”
And considering the fact that there were many Parker novels over the years, should “Play Dirty” perform well on Amazon, would Black want to come back for a sequel? He said he’s too superstitious to even think like that. But should it do well, he’d happily return. “There’s an endlessly supply of material in those books and we can generate capers all day long that continue to challenge him,” Black said. “Let’s just say, I wouldn’t be averse.” Still: too superstitious to imagine further chapters just yet.
Black said he has some “loose ideas” for a “Nice Guys” sequel, although the idea of recruiting both stars (Russell Crowe and Ryan Gosling) and convincing a studio to finance “a big budget sequel to a movie that didn’t do well in a theater” is a stretch. “There’s a cult-ness to ‘The Nice Guys.’ It’s not like everyone ran to see it when it opened, but they discovered it,” Black said. Most of the movies he’s most proud of did “middling box office and then just lingered.” “The Monster Squad,” which Black co-wrote, is a perfect example of that. “Here’s a movie that tanked in 1987 and then in 2025 there are conventions now where 2000 people show up to watch ‘The Monster Squad,’” Black said.
While he isn’t sure what he’s going to do next, Black acknowledges that it’s been almost 40 years since he sold the script to “Lethal Weapon.” “Here I am flapping my aging gums at you about movies from the past,” Black joked. “There’s a chapter left and I’ve been blessed enough, perhaps, to do it. Now I’ve got to go inside and figure out what that is. It’s no longer a game about what’s going to be a popular sequel. I’m not elderly, but I don’t have all the time in the world like I used to. I don’t know what I’m going to do, but I have to go deep and figure it out.”
We wondered if there was another literary character, perhaps, that he’d want to update. Black said that once he was suffering from a year’s-long depression and he picked up a book by American novelist Robert McCammon. “I started reading and I realized that I got hooked and I thought, This is the only thing I’m looking forward to. I’m actually excited about something – getting back to that book,” Black said. “I don’t know if he likes having his books made into movies, but I’m going to maybe look at those.”
He also is still harboring a passion to make “Doc Savage,” based on the pulp hero from the 1930s and ‘40s. There’s a script by Black, Bagarozzi and Mondry and there was movement on the project back in 2014, following Black’s “Iron Man 3” making over $1 billion at the global box office. But it still never materialized.
“I’d still like to make but it’s an IP that it’s not like Superman or Batman, and yet it’s probably going to cost as much as Superman or Batman,” Black said. “Is someone willing to take a flyer on a movie that’s the OG superhero – it’s the real deal, but it’s also not a household name.”
Maybe if “Play Dirty” hits, someone will be willing to take the risk.
“Play Dirty” is on Prime Video now.
