Friday, February 1, 2013

Son of Lee Marvin

Dearest Readers,

I am doing something out of my comfort zone tonight.  I am going to a late-night movie.  I used to go to movies all the time but that was many moons ago. In fact, I was a late night haunter of midnight movies for many years.

On occasion I have even been known to sleep in movie theaters because it was warmer than where I was living.  There were times when eating popcorn was known as "Holiday Dinner". Well, dearest reader, I was in the wonderful Bay known as Tampa earlier this week and went to the flicks.

As you have guessed by now, I am a huge fan of the Westlake, as in Donald E. The motherfucker was a WRITER. Not an author, not an artist, not a craftsman.  He was a goddamn writer. That holds truck with me and if you don't know the difference then I don't know what to tell you.

So I went and saw Parker in the Bay of Tampa.  To be honest, I didn't hate it.  It was reasonably well cast, the story line was Westlakeish, and there was plenty of action.  Now here's what I didn't like.  There was waaay too little dialogue for a Westlake novel turned film.  There is just too much inner narrative in his novels to make a decent film without transforming a fair amount into dialogue.

Love J-Lo as the female lead though.  I would not cast her in a cat food commercial, but she totally worked in this role and did a great job as a real estate salesperson.  As for Parker, he fit the part, didn't overdo, and was never in the way of the story. (he didn't try to make a name). But the flick still fell short of a Westlake novel.  I wasn't disappointed, didn't sleep in the theater, and ultimately enjoyed myself.  But for $10 I hoped for more.

For the love of crime novels.

Your humblest of servants,
BKoM

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