'Play Dirty': Everything To Know

Parker, the main character in a bunch of novels by Richard Stark (a pen name of Donald E. Westlake), is well-represented in Hollywood. He’s been portrayed by Mel Gibson in Payback, Jason Statham in Parker, and now, Mark Wahlberg in the upcoming Play Dirty.

Director Shane Black is in the driver’s seat here and he’s pumped to get back to a “gut-punch, old-school kind of storytelling,” as he explained to Esquire. That means no “descending in black, [hanging] upside down, wearing laser goggles, and looking through matrices of green light.”

Ahead of the movie’s release, keep reading for everything you need to know before it lands on streaming.

Plot

The official logline reads, “An expert thief rolls out the biggest heist of his life in Play Dirty, an action-packed thriller from director Shane Black. Parker (Mark Wahlberg), along with Grofield (LaKeith Stanfield), Zen (Rosa Salazar) and a skilled crew, stumble onto a score that pits them against the New York mob in this gritty, clever caper.”

Wahlberg told Collider of the film:

“For me, it’s like The Italian Job meets Heat. It’s got the action, it’s got the high stakes, it’s got the humor, it’s got these great characters, the best Shane Black dialogue. I waited a long time to get a script like that. Any time we talked about, ‘Okay, what’s the kind of movie you wanna do as an actor if we’re talking a big, giant commercial movie?’ And Lethal Weapon is always right there, and some of the other films that Shane has written, so I couldn’t have been more happy. Hopefully he was as happy as I was with the experience.”

Cast

The movie stars Mark Wahlberg, LaKeith Stanfield, Rosa Salazar, Keegan-Michael Key, Chukwudi Iwuji, Nat Wolff, Thomas Jane, Saskia Archer, and Tony Shalhoub.

Archer told Spotlight Report of working on the movie, “The greatest takeaway from working on this production was trusting my instincts. As actors, it’s easy to get swept up in all the opinions out there, but I found falling back on my instincts was exactly what I needed to do. In terms of working with the big industry names, they were delightful. When it comes to filmmaking, it’s a satisfying experience when everyone is there working towards the common goal. That’s exactly what it felt like on Play Dirty to create a great film.”