Rock ’ em, sock ’ em!
New Wahlberg flick on Netflix is fun for what it is
Spenser Confidential Streaming, Netflix
• “Man, you get beat up a lot,” an aspiring boxer tells the eponymous punching bag/pulp- fiction private eye Mark Wahlberg plays in Spenser Confidential. “And I’ve noticed every single time you get your face pushed in, you come back with just a little bit more information.”
That’s a pretty apt description of Spenser’s modus operandi, and one of several self-aware winks that makes this genre- bruising, madefor- Netflix action vehicle a lot more fun, if not nearly as respectable, as Wahlberg’s four previous collaborations with director Peter Berg.
In those films — which include a trio of panic- attack true- story thrillers, Lone Survivor, Deepwater Horizon and Patriots Day — Wahlberg and Berg seemed to be reaching for some kind of awards- season legitimacy. Here, on the other hand, they’re just cutting loose.
Conceived by author Robert B. Parker, the Spenser character first appeared on screen around the same time as those films, via the Spenser: For Hire TV show. Though actor Robert Urich played him cool at the time, there’s not much connection between the ’ 80s series and this movie.
The version of Spenser that Wahlberg embodies — a former boxer and belligerent ex- cop whose righteous code of honour was a bad fit for the Boston Police Department — was stripped of his badge and sentenced to five years in prison for assaulting a crooked BPD captain ( Michael Gaston). Spenser Confidential picks up on the day its title character is meant to be released, and it’s only then that he’s set up by a softspoken fellow inmate (rapper Post Malone, unnerving in a small role) and jumped by the biggest goons in his block.
Thus, Spenser re- enters the free world with a shiv to the side and a cut to the face — the first scars in a collection of mementos of his colourful run- ins with disgruntled ex- colleagues and machete- wielding gang members. Dodging his crazy ex- girlfriend Cissy ( comedian Iliza Shlesinger), Spenser meets former boxing coach Henry (Alan Arkin, typically sardonic) at the prison gates, swearing that he plans to leave Boston, but before he can get packed, the BPD superior he assaulted all those years earlier turns up dead in a grisly hit.
Spenser would be an obvious suspect, if whoever’s responsible hadn’t pinned the murder on another good cop. Spenser vows to investigate it himself, extracting clues the painful way: one beating at a time.
In their most relaxed collaboration yet, Berg allows the star’s natural charisma to define the character, adapting Spenser to Wahlberg’s persona rather than the other way around. The film even pokes fun at itself in the process, fully aware that Spenser Confidential isn’t meant to be taken as seriously— and just as well, since irreverence plays well on Netflix.