Play Dirty feels like an action comedy pulled from the past. It’s got the action and the comedy, though the latter is more sparse, but it’s also actively missing something integral to making it a truly entertaining outing: a reason to care about anything that happens to the characters. The plot is unnecessarily convoluted, with too many players attempting to cash in on the big heist, which is naturally ludicrous but lacking in charm. “Rob the robbers” is this film’s motto, and it would have been a wildly more fascinating ride if it weren’t so messy and drawn-out.

Directed by Shane Black (The Nice Guys, Iron Man 3, The Predator) from a screenplay he co-wrote with Charles Mondry and Anthony Bagarozzi, and adapted from the novels by Donald E. Westlake, the Prime Video film is determined to be slick, often exemplifying the cool yet aloof personality that Mark Wahlberg’s Parker wears like armor. But with far too many characters to juggle, the humor too few and far between, and middle-of-the-road action, Play Dirty is not a joy to watch so much as it is a chore to sit through.

Parker is a professional thief whose initial heist goes wrong when his crew is betrayed. When he learns about a new heist — one involving the theft of a centuries-old artifact worth $1 billion — from Zen (Rosa Salazar), Parker, who’s also on the wrong side of the Outfit, a crime syndicate he was once a part of and is now run by Lozini (Tony Shalhoub), brings together a team to pull it off before it gets into the hands of De La Paz (Alejandro Edda), the corrupt president of an unnamed (but obviously South American) country.

Play Dirty Is A Disappointment Despite A Great Cast

With a stacked cast, including LaKeith Stanfield and Keegan-Michael Key, the action comedy instantly drops us into the middle of a heist. And that’s fine; it’s not the first or last heist film to do that. The only issue here, though, is that so many people get sH๏τ and killed, with one particular death meant to maintain an emotional resonance throughout the film, that it barely registers. That remains true throughout the film. We’re meant to care that Parker’s colleague was killed, but he barely flinches and, save for a brief, teary-eyed performance from Gretchen Mol, it falls flat.

Occasionally, the film is funny, with Stanfield particularly getting in a few comedic one-liners that stand out amidst the story doldrums. That’s refreshing considering most action comedies are sorely lacking in the latter, but that alone can’t save Play Dirty from the lifelessness that permeates the film. Even the cast’s chemistry isn’t up to par, and Wahlberg, as the main character, gets drowned out by a too-large cast that doesn’t get anything substantial to work with.

The character relationships are barely there and, worse, sanded down so they don’t stick out. Even the reveal of why Parker became a thief in the first place, which comes at the hour and 20-minute mark in a two-hour film, doesn’t give the story any added energy or tension. Zen is arguably the best character, with a semi-fleshed-out story that actually has (barely there) stakes, but the lack of specificity (she mentions “my country” a lot, but we never learn what it’s called or much about it beyond stealing from the “bad president”) comes across as lazy writing.

Play Dirty Doesn’t Have Any Soul

All in all, Play Dirty is long and tiresome. It doesn’t have a strong enough story or characters to carry it, despite an overall great cast; the weakest link might be Wahlberg, whose facial expressions barely change, and he plays Parker with a self-seriousness that is unnecessary. It’s hard to tell what Parker is truly feeling at any given moment, too focused on the heist that it leaves so little room for anything in between, including exploring his history with Shalhoub’s character.

The film doesn’t seem to care all that much about conveying anything worthwhile beyond superficiality and basic action sequences. It’s already a ridiculous plot, so why not lean into that more and give us characters worth investing in what happens to them? What the film is ultimately missing is a good dose of charisma and fluidity with its material. That, at the very least, might have allowed Play Dirty to skate by. What we get instead is a soulless heist thriller that tries way too hard to be joyfully entertaining and, despite all its potential, manages to come up short.

Play Dirty is now streaming on Prime Video.