03-07-2020, 08:26 PM
SPENSER CONFIDENTIAL (Netflix 2020)
starring Mark Wahlberg and Winston Duke
directed by Peter Berg
I was a big Robert B. Parker fan. Through the 80s and 90s I pretty much devoured everything he wrote. In particular, his Boston private eye Spenser series was an absolute favourite of mine.
Spenser For Hire (1985-88), starring Robert Urich and Avery Brooks, was, is, one my favourite detective tv series. And while it took some liberties with the source material, it was very faithful to the essential core elements of all the characters. Urich and Brooks would reprise their roles in four tv movies between 1993-95.
Between 1994 and 1997 Joe Mantenga portrayed Spenser in 3 tv movies made for A&E. They were not very good. While Mantenga does a great Spenser for Audio Books, he lacked the physicality to convincely play the role.
And now we have Marky Mark playing the role.
And it was.... okay?
The relationship of Spenser and Hawk has been reinterpretted/modernized as an action comedy buddy mystery. The broadstrokes of Spenser and his world are there, but it lacks all the fine detail, nuance and poetry that made the book series a great read for over 40 years.
The character has been seriously Wahlberged. His backstory has been completely altered. Hawk is unrecongizeable. And Susan Silverman is completely missing and has been replaced by a foul mouth Southie dog groomer named Mona.
I dunno. If this had been just a Wahlberg movie with different character names, I might have enjoyed it more. But since I am very familiar with the source material, all I could see were all the unnecessary changes or things it got completely wrong.
5 out of 10 for me.
starring Mark Wahlberg and Winston Duke
directed by Peter Berg
I was a big Robert B. Parker fan. Through the 80s and 90s I pretty much devoured everything he wrote. In particular, his Boston private eye Spenser series was an absolute favourite of mine.
Spenser For Hire (1985-88), starring Robert Urich and Avery Brooks, was, is, one my favourite detective tv series. And while it took some liberties with the source material, it was very faithful to the essential core elements of all the characters. Urich and Brooks would reprise their roles in four tv movies between 1993-95.
Between 1994 and 1997 Joe Mantenga portrayed Spenser in 3 tv movies made for A&E. They were not very good. While Mantenga does a great Spenser for Audio Books, he lacked the physicality to convincely play the role.
And now we have Marky Mark playing the role.
And it was.... okay?
The relationship of Spenser and Hawk has been reinterpretted/modernized as an action comedy buddy mystery. The broadstrokes of Spenser and his world are there, but it lacks all the fine detail, nuance and poetry that made the book series a great read for over 40 years.
The character has been seriously Wahlberged. His backstory has been completely altered. Hawk is unrecongizeable. And Susan Silverman is completely missing and has been replaced by a foul mouth Southie dog groomer named Mona.
I dunno. If this had been just a Wahlberg movie with different character names, I might have enjoyed it more. But since I am very familiar with the source material, all I could see were all the unnecessary changes or things it got completely wrong.
5 out of 10 for me.
"... let's go exploring!" -- CALVIN.
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