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If you’re an action/thriller lover, then there’s a new chart-topping movie you need to add to your watch list.
Starring Hollywood giants Robert Downey Jr. and Mark Wahlberg, Play Dirty has been hailed as a real ‘crowd-pleaser’ by fans, sending it soaring up the Amazon Prime Video charts, days after release.
Then again, perhaps that’s not surprising, given it’s the work of iconic filmmaker Shane Black, who is best known for originating the Lethal Weapon franchise.
Play Dirty landed on the streaming platform on October 1, with audiences already praising its ‘nostalgic’ feel, declaring it ‘everything and more that you would expect from an OG 90s action film’, as per the glowing feedback on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes.
The plot follows an expert thief who stages the biggest heist of his life and, along with his crew, stumbles onto a score that pits them against the New York mob.
Other cast members of the flick include Rosa Salazar as Zen, LaKeith Stanfield as Alan Grofield, Yvonne Zima as Traci, and Gretchen Mol as Grace Webb.
Within a mere two days, Play Dirty has proven a real hit, sitting at number one in Amazon Prime’s top 10 in the UK, ahead of Gen V, The Girlfriend, and The Summer I Turned Pretty.
Taking to Rotten Tomatoes with their thoughts, viewers were keen to dish out five stars.
‘Great movie, lots of adrenaline, lots of action, funny, great cast, Wahlberg is incredible in the character, I intend to watch it many times’, praised Lu s.
‘This movie was a blast. Old school cool. Wish we could get more like this’, wrote Tom T.
Jeferson O also called Wahlberg’s performance ‘explosive’, while Mirza M said: ‘Play Dirty is a crowd-pleaser heist flick that gets the job done with a touch of style.’
‘Play Dirty is a big hit in our house! Lots of plot twists, amazing chase scenes, special effects, and lots of humour! The movie is a little over 2 hours long, but the time flew by while we were watching it’, said Lorna S.
Alas, some might need a little more convincing, saying they found the film ‘cheesy’ and blasting the CGI as ‘awful’.
But when others are calling it ‘phenomenal’ and the ‘best movie ever’, the positive reviews definitely outweigh the bad.
As for critics’ reviews, The Guardian declared Black’s action comedy comeback ‘a blast’.
Meanwhile, Empire countered criticism of the ‘slightly shoddy’ CGI, arguing it’s forgiven by the film’s ‘sense of impish fun’.
Play Dirty is Black’s first film in seven years, following his last one, The Predator (2018), which he both wrote and directed.
In an interview ahead of Play Dirty’s release, he couldn’t have spoken highly enough of its lead stars, lauding Downey Jr. as ‘lightning in a bottle’.
‘You’re not quite sure what you’re going to get. And I’m happy to take credit for it when suddenly it’s on the screen,’ he told Variety.
On working with Wahlberg, he said the movie star ‘showed up having memorised the script’.
‘He knew every nuance of it. He didn’t sit before, mumbling—he knew all the lines, so then you could vary from that.
‘If someone wants to improv, and there were some people on the set who were particularly prone to that, Mark keeps up. Mark just jumps at it. He sees a chance to fire back. That sort of being in the moment is what I like about Mark in particular, because as much preparation as he does, when he steps onto set, he lets go and is in the now.’
Black described this as ‘an actor’s greatest asset: to let the previous work inform the performance but not be thinking about it when you’re in the moment.’
Play Dirty is now streaming on Amazon Prime Video.
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