In the past 38 years, Shane Black Have written and/or directed some of the smartest, funniest crime films to get out of the big studios, from the very influential ”The weapon of death“To cult favorites such as”Kiss Kiss Bang Bang“And”The nice guys. “All of these films have been greatly affected by the pulp writer of the 20th century, but for his latest film, Black goes directly to the source and adapts one of the genre’s key figures for an action comedy such as off-beat, idiosyncratic and entertaining as all blacks have done.
“Play dirty“Isn a direct adaptation of any one of Donald Westlake’s” Parker “Novels, but an original story that absorbs elements from the several of the books – and adds A Few from Westlake’s More Comic” Dortmunder “Series. Translated to the screen Several Times by Directors Like John Boorman (“Point Blank”) and Brian Helgeland (“Payback”), but Black’s interpretation emphasizes the humor-without losing the view of the stripped-down reputation that has always made parks a favorite among crime enthusiasts.
“Of course the tone of the Parker books is dark,” Black said to IndieWire’s Filmmakers Toolkit Podcast. “That said, there are some character work that can be seen as very snappy and potentially fun. And I thought, there have been so many iterations in recent years of this kind of tough guy that is mainly played for mood and sweat and noir, and I like it – but those movies have been made. It is a version of” Parker “where we do not allow the character, we do not compensate, we do not compensate, we do not compensate, we will not be the case, we do not compensate the character, we do not make it, we do not make it. Do not play the character, we do not pull the city, but maybe we allow us to be a bit with a version of “parks” where we do not compensate the character, we, we do not pull the city, but maybe we allow us to be a bit with a version of “parks” where we do not compensate the character, we, we do not pull the city, but we may allow us.
Making Parker Livelier meant some things, starting with throwing Mark Wahlberg as the brutal thief. Black felt that Wahlberg had an innate similarity on the screen which meant that Black did not have to force identification with the character by making him too eccentric. “In the 70s there were used detective films that would try to juice the similarity all the time,” Black said. “The character would have a parrot, and the parrot’s name was a cat, and then he would wake up and there is a woman’s shoe in his refrigerator. It was all an attempt to make the detective for this strange quirk party.”
For “Play Dirty”, Black wanted to go back to the basics and honor the spirit in Westlake, which he says remains the gold standard for writers who are really obsessed with crime fiction. “He is the guy that other mystery writers turn to,” said Black. “If you told a bartender,” Hello, give me the good things behind the bar, “he would say,” I have some westlake to you. “I was drawn to the Parker books because they are full of turns and feel authentic without being dry.
Another way that Black wanted to separate his film from previous movie versions of Parker was to create a story with a sense of scale. “I love all other iterations from parks, but they are very small,” he said. “Most of them are about an enclosed heist: stealing an armored car, stealing diamonds, whatever.” Black wanted to “turn the volume” by creating several steps to Parkers Heist and filling them with double cows that constantly move the action in different directions and force the characters to calibrate their plans and expectations.
Black stacks also “Play Dirty” with ambitious and original sets, starts with a jaw-release hunt for a race track involving cars, horses and their jockey and a gun-toting parks on foot. The sequence is funny in its outrage and sometimes shocking in its violence, and the tonal trickiness is something that has been a hallmark of Black’s work since the suicide Martin Riggs (Mel Gibson) switched between crying while he was aiming a pistol against himself and reintroduced three Stooges routines on a drug. For black is to find the right balance always an ongoing process for tests and errors, a battle that is largely won in the editing room.
“When you wrap filming – which means you stop shooting, you have all your pictures, everyone shakes hand and going home – you are now ten percent,” said Black. “Editing is where you do it. You consult friends and people you consider to be experts who know you and know what you are looking for. They share a joint assignment with you. You say:” Did we get it? Are we on the right track? “And they will say,” I like this joke here, but then you continue it and it gets a little stupid. “Sometimes, even when I like it, I give that weekend before I lock myself because I may not like it on Monday.
In addition to cocktail of humor and violence, one of the things that stands out about the action set in “Play Dirty” is the clarity of the spatial relationships; Black is a champion in staging even the fastest hunts and shots so that the audience always has a clear sense of where everyone is in relation to each other and how dangerous efforts are. “Geography is important,” Black said. “On the set you know where everything is and you assume the audience is coming, but they will not.”
Black carefully storyboards its action scenes and, in fact possible, use animatures – in fact, filmmakers who are interested in seeing how full animatics can make an action scene would be recommended to check out Animatic for Black’s “Iron Man 3” Herrgård attack sequence Published on Youtube. “You can see it almost as if it’s the movie and it was done before we shot a frame,” Black said. “You will see the sophistication of the available tools to have an idea, draw it, animate, change it and scrub it until you have a targeted sequence that can now recreate, with a little game room for some fun.”
Leaving that game room is always an important part of Black’s process. “No matter how good the text on the page is, I see it too many times and I go,” can it be better? “Can we add something? So you want to give way to an actor to suddenly give in to a small impulse that beats you as odd.”
“Play Dirty” leaves the actors plenty of room for such moments, especially in their quieter moments – who in a late scene where parks realize that his code requires him to do something he really wishes he didn’t need. Contracts as the one we see expressed in Wahlberg’s face when he is drawing in the trigger is a core in the appeal of Parker – as well as his perfect professional skill, somewhat black mirrors with the craft of filmmaking in “Play Dirty.”
“Parker books are skills porn,” Black said. “This guy just knows what to do, takes care of it and handles it in a blue collar way. He’s not spotted. You won’t see anyone coming down on a black suit with laser glasses. This is the type of guy who kicks down a door and buster someone’s kidneys with a crow. that I cut my teeth on. ”
Given that there are dozens of parks novels with materials Black Can Mine and that he is such a Westlake teachings, the obvious question is whether he has plans for more films with the character or not. “Who knows? Amazon must be pleased that they have got their money worth,” Black said. “I don’t exclude it, but I would not speak for them. All I can do is offer a movie that hopefully is lively and fun enough that it will make people lose themselves for a couple of hours.”
“Play Dirty” is currently streaming on Prime Video. To hear the entire conversation with Shane Black about “Play Dirty” and make sure you don’t miss a single episode of Filmmaker Toolkit, subscribe to the podcast on AppleThe SpotifyOr your favorite podcast platform.
