SPENSER CONFIDENTIAL
Mark Wahlberg’s P.I. sniffs out corruption and takes a beating or 10.
Man, you get beat up a lot!” marvels Hawk (Winston Duke) as his roommate Spenser receives yet another pummelling for sticking his nose where it doesn’t belong. Indeed, between getting jumped in a prison library, thumped in a pub toilet and attacked by a machete-wielding gang, it’s a wonder Mark Wahlberg’s wannabe P.I. has any time for detecting in this resurrection of the Boston-based shamus that Robert Urich played in ’80s TV series Spenser For Hire (based in turn on Robert B. Parker’s crime novels).
Here, Spenser is a disgraced former cop whose dreams of driving big rigs in Arizona are halted when he gets a whiff of corruption in his native Beantown. He’s soon on the trail of drug shipments, dirty officials and shady deals, but his toughest customer may well be girlfriend Cissy (Iliza Shlesinger), who gives as good as she gets.
With Alan Arkin adding grandpa humour as Spenser’s cantankerous landlord, it’s clear Peter Berg’s film is intended to be the first of several. You wonder, though, if audiences will have as much affection as Wahlberg has for a hero whose main USP is a gluttony for punishment. There’s the makings of a promising double act in Spenser’s bickering relationship with Hawk, an aspiring MMA fighter who can’t abide cruelty to animals. However, the buddy comedy doesn’t quite gel with the noir-ish genre trappings, resulting in a film that’s big on laughs yet low on drama. Neil Smith