"Spenser Confidential" is a perfect project for the "Netflix" platform. We are talking about an average budget action movie starring a well-known star, and it includes a story that does not need much attention for the viewer to understand. This type of movie will not be paid by some cinema audiences for 55 dirhams for its ticket, but they will be more encouraged to watch it at home on Netflix.
The movie bears the features of the movies of the eighties and nineties, when the prevailing subjects were cinematic muscles and men's roughness, and it is precisely what defined the action as a cinematic category at the time. This film is the fifth collaboration between director Peter Berg and his friend, the star Mark Wolberg, and it clearly shows that they are trying to get away from the relatively heavier topics based on real facts, which they made together, such as: Lone Survivor, Deep Water Horizon, Patriots Day, and Mile 22, and this The latter does not belong to the previous films, but it resembles them in action and violence.
It is highly unlikely that anyone will remember a popular 80s series named Spenser for Hire, this movie is yet another vision of the same character as that series. The movie and the series are excerpts from a series of crime novels written by Robert B. Parker, and the movie specifically from "Wonderland" published in 2013 after Parker's death, when his heirs and publisher agreed with two authors, Michael Brandman and Ace Atkins, to complete his literary career and author more novels using his characters, Atkins. He wrote a novel of this film.
Wolberg's vision of Spencer's character is not very different from that of Robert Yorick, who embodied it for the series. Sometimes his investigation method requires that he be beaten.
The story is about a crime that has been repeated hundreds of times cinematically, and it is about widespread corruption among some Boston police. After Spencer (Wolberg) is released from prison after a five-year sentence for assaulting his boss, vile, captain Boylan (Michael Gaston), he is back on suspicion after Boylan's death by gang death.
Driscoll (Pokémon Woodpin) defends Spencer's friend and former police colleague, and soon after the suspect is announced. Spencer does not believe the police name of the suspect, and doubts the existence of an internal plot among police officers to cover up a major order, which gives him a strong impetus to start his own investigation and bring the perpetrators to justice.
Spencer makes use of his friend Henry (Alan Arkon) and Henry's friend Boxer Hook (Winston Dock), and begins to interfere in what he does not care. The film contains no original idea, not even a unique shot. But it contains bold scenes for a movie in 2020. We talk about ideas that were prevalent and accepted in the decades of the eighties and nineties, and today critics no longer accept them, but large segments of the public welcome them.
For example, the idea that muscles for men only are no longer acceptable in Hollywood today, and women must be muscled as well and fight the mightiest wrestlers and defeat them, which is nonsense the fans did not accept, and this explains the failure of all action films with female championships.
This movie fully backs the championship for men and strikes Hollywood's progressive ideas wall view. Whatever ideas Berg and Wallberg want to promote in the movie, a strong female idea is not among them. The filmmakers are not necessarily mistaken, given the great diversity that exists today in filmmaking.
Whoever wants a movie that balances a man and a woman, or wants an absolute, male or female full starring to find and view it, there is no law that prohibits making a movie in a specific way, and there is no law that prevents anyone from watching what he wants. If we look at these details, politics will interfere with art, and we will be deprived of watching films bearing the features of the past decades that are very much needed for movie fans in general, or for those who are not interested in politicizing Hollywood and mixing it with paper.
The screenplay of the movie is easily guessable, and it is characterized by a kind of foolishness, just as were the films of Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone and Chuck Norris in the 1980s in particular. The identity of the corrupt gang gang leader will only surprise those who do not watch movies.
Berg knows he's making a silly movie, we know from dialogues and from the way we design funny action scenes, too. There is an exciting scene of Wolberg driving a black armored truck, hitting a parked police car blocking his way. Berg did not take the scene seriously, although he did it well, but not breathtaking.
Wolberg appears relaxed in the role, as if he is entertaining him more than devoting himself to him, and with Duc they do not constitute a good duo, and the harmony is almost nonexistent between them, because they do not share the screen much, but on the other side there is a pleasant spark of harmony between Wolberg and Arkene.
This is the second project between Berg and Wolberg filmed in Boston and is the home of the latter. Writing the script was partly attributed to Brian Heligland, who quoted Dennis Lehan's novel - the latter also son of Boston - titled A Mysterious River in 2003 for a fabulous film with the same name directed by Clint Eastwood in Boston. It seems that there is a clear intention to highlight the city's landmarks, although the text of the film does not need this.
Spencer Confidential is not good, but it is very fun, you will not find an exceptional story, but you will find action scenes with a high entertainment value. The movie is very suitable for a "streaming" platform, if you are looking for a two-hour entertainment that gives you only half or even a quarter of your attention, this film will do the trick.
One final note: There is another movie on "Netflix" for fans of this quality - meaning Men with Distinction - that is, Triple Frontier, which we published reading this month last year.
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If you are looking for a two-hour entertainment, giving it only half or even a quarter of your attention, this movie will do the trick.
This type of movie will not be paid by some cinema audiences for 55 dirhams for its ticket, but they will be more encouraged to watch it at home on Netflix.