A criminal with a moral code and blood on his hands

In the first scene of Foul play A crazed robber and a thousand-man back down upon learning that his interlocutor answers to the name "Parker." This notion of familiarity drives Shane Black's film at all levels. On the one hand, he trusts that some of the audience will know the central character, the expeditious robber with a strict professional (and, in a way, moral) code created by Donald E. Westlake under the pseudonym of Richard Stark, who had already appeared on screen with the features of Mel Gibson and Jason Statham, and who is now still on the path of stoicism. On the other hand, the film attempts to capture the essence of Parker by taking motifs from the various books in which he stars, and turns the story into a great reunion with enemies and allies.

But, above all, what Black intends is to fatten the codes of the buddy movies and the cocktail of action and comedy that has characterized him since he signed the script forLethal weapon. In this regard, Foul play It has inspired sequences, such as the prologue, which literally collides a robbery that turns into violence, a car chase and a horse race (perhaps a nod toPerfect heist Kubrick's?). But the surplus of characters that accumulates in the footage and the insistence on seeking out the complicity between the protagonists ends up giving the impression that we are watching the sequel to a story of which no one has asked us if we wanted to know the continuation.