The only commonality between Robert Parker’s Spenser and Mark Wahlberg’s Spenser is the name. Forget Parker’s private eye, forget Spenser’s best friend Hawk, and forget Spenser’s psychiatrist girl friend Susan. Mark Wahlberg plays a former cop who is sent to prison for beating up his boss. Wahlberg serves his five-year sentence and the Netflix movie opens with Wahlberg being released. His ditzy girl friend, Cissy, shows up at the prison to greet him, but Wahlberg avoids her. Cissy is a dog boarder played by Iliza Shlesinger. Later in this movie, Cissy enters a Men’s Room and “seduces” Wahlberg. It’s an awkward scene in this current sexual behavior era.
My favorite character in Spenser Confidential is Black Panther actor Winston Duke who plays Hawk as an aspiring Mixed Marshal Arts fighter. After overcoming some initial hostility, Wahlberg and Duke start to work together to solve the murder of Wahlberg’s former boss and a cop who seems to have been framed for the murder. The script, by L.A. Confidential writers Sean O’Keefe and Brian Helgeland, veers towards vigilante justice in The A-Team fashion. Director Peter Berg (Lone Survivor, Deepwater Horizon, and Patriot’s Day) keeps things moving even if the plot is a bit loopy. Will there be more Spenser Confidential episodes? In the Age of the Coronavirus and people hunkering down, I think it’s a good bet that we’ll be seeing Mark Wahlberg’s Spenser again. Were you a fan of Spenser: For Hire? GRADE: C
Watched this last Friday. I would give it a D. Seems more like a made for tv movie rather than a theatrical one. Has little to do with the Spenser books. Spenser was never in prison including the novel by Ace Atkins on which this is based. I never watched Spenser For Hire.
Steve, I was tempted to give SPENSER CONFIDENTIAL a “D.” But, I like Winston Duke. Wahlberg gets beaten up a lot, too.
Even pretending this movie is about Parker’s Spenser is a blasphemy and places a run of the mill flick even lower in my eyes. I can’t help feeling betrayed by such a disrespect for the original character, much like I did in Tom Cruise’s MISSION IMPOSSIBLE ego-fests. I enjoyed the Ace Atkins book this travesty was based upon (ROBERT B. PARKER’S WONDERLAND) but both Atkins and Parker were done dirt by this excretion. Ptah! That said, it’s always good to see Alan Arkin.
BTW: Atkins does a better Spenser than Parker.
Jerry, I agree with your analysis. Alan Arkin could have been used better. I have the Ace Atkins books, but haven’t gotten around to read them (the story of my Life).
I also feel that Ace Atkins is a better writer than Parker.
Steve, now I have to dig one of those Ace Atkins Parkers out and read it.
I’ve read all of the Spenser novels, at least the ones by Parker, and may have watched the first episode of whatever the first Spenser tv show was called, but that was it. This looks like a complete disgrace and there’s no way in hell I’d watch it. I know a lot of people, including me, think that Reed Farrel Coleman’s Jesse Stone novels are better than Parker’s but I’d never heard a similar claim about Ace Atkins’ Spenser novels, and I’ve never read one. Perhaps I should try them.
Michael, it won’t surprise you to discover I have Reed Farrel Coleman’s Jesse Stone novels…but haven’t read them yet.
Sounds dreadful.
Rick, that about sums up SPENSER CONFIDENTIAL.
No, never watched Spenser: For Hire. I did read the first ten of the books by Parker before I’d had enough. Zero interest in this. Not a Wahlberg fan, though I will watch Alan Arkin in anything. I have been tempted to try the Coleman continuation of the Jesse Stone series. Jackie is a fan of the Tom Selleck movies about Stone.
Jeff, Diane is a fan of the Jesse Stone TV series. Tom Selleck has done a couple of “originals” in the Jesse Stone series that I thought stunk.
I was a fan of the parker books but probably, like Jeff, only read the first 10-15. Don’t remember where I stopped. I did watch the series, at least some of it. I liked Urich (who is a producer on this) but my fav. was Avery Brooks as Hawk.
I saw this Sun. while getting my nails done. I probably missed a little dialogue when a man came in the shop with a question, and we didn’t know how to rewind, but they have closed captioning on. I liked it. I actually liked Walberg as spencer (he looks more like what I pictured him to be than Ulrich). Since this Hawk is so young, I felt like this was almost a prequel, showing how Hawk started. I liked him. Like George, I thought the bathroom sex scene was unnecessary and icky. I agree Alan Arkin was great in it. As I remember, Pearl the dog was a dobie??? From the end of this movie, you can bet there will be another. You do have to suspend disbelief in movies/books like this where 2 men take on mobs/armies of baddies.
ps one of the reasons I stopped with Parker was time, and I couldn’t listen to audio books because what seemed like each chapter in them was mostly ” I said, Susan said, Hawk said, I said, etc.” way too much I wasn’t a fan of Susan in the books she seemed smug
Maggie, I came to dislike Susan in the Parker novels. She just rubbed me the wrong way.
Maggie, I liked Urich and Avery Brooks in the SPENSER: FOR HIRE series. SPENSER CONFIDENTIAL is a whole different animal from the Robert Parker books. Let’s be kind and call it a “re-imagining.”
I don’t picture Wahlberg as Spenser. I believe Spenser is tall where Wahlberg is 5’8″.
Steve, you’re right. But remember, dinky Tom Cruise is playing 6’5″ Jack Reacher.
Parker’s reputation seems to be on the decline, and I regret adding to the trend with my comment on the Coleman continuation of the Jesse Stone books. It’s true that the quality of the Spenser series declined pretty drastically after the first 10-12, but those earlier ones are SO good. It would be a real shame if people stopped reading them.
Michael, I agree with your assessment of Robert Parker’s Spenser novels. I quit reading them after about the first 10 books. I was getting annoyed with Susan and the dog. The Jesse Stone books were okay, but apparently Coleman improved them.
“…vigilante justice in The A-Team fashion”? In the A-Team tv shows, every bad guy got perp walked away from the scene, slightly injured, no matter how much shooting, bombing, grenading, and automobile destruction went on. If there was ever a genuine corpse, it’s news to me.
Art, that’s exactly what happens at the conclusion of SPENSER CONFIDENTIAL: an A-Team type battle where nobody dies but there’s maximum destruction and explosions! And, plenty of shooting but everybody misses!
I was reading Reed Farrel Coleman’s Jesse Stone, The Hangman’s Sonnet, on the way home from Florida on Saturday. Made the four-hour flight go by quickly. I was a big fan of the early Spenser books by Parker, but stopped enjoying them around book 12-13 when the margins became wider than the text. It seemed he was churning them out as required and became more focused on his other series. I like Ace Atkins as a writer and have read a couple of his Spensers, which I think helped put the series back on track. I also liked the Spenser For Hire TV series and felt Robert Urich and the Hawk actor worked. Did you ever watch the Jesse Stone TV movies with Tom Selleck?
Kent, my wife loves the Jesse Stone TV movies with Tom Selleck. I liked the early movies, but the later ones weren’t based on the books…and went off the rails.