Spenser Confidential (film): A lot of hype but a pretty empty delivery

Even over here in Asia this film is being advertised almost everywhere. It was mentioned during my Sunday morning UFC event at least a dozen times, is prominently featured on the Netflix home screen, and even invaded my IG feed. Mark Wahlberg doesn't tend to get involved in bad films anymore so it has to be good right? Well, unfortunately it just isn't.

I have tried to avoid all SPOILERS but if you want to go in blind you may wish to skip this review

Mark Wahlberg plays Spenser, a cop who is being released from prison for a crime that he actually did commit but for all the right reasons. As soon as he is let out things immediately go horribly wrong for him as there are some people that he has dirt on and they need him out of the way. Therefore he is constantly pursued by bad guys and only has a very small team of pals that will back him up.

If this storyline sounds familiar that is only because it has been done many many many many many times before and that is the first problem I have with this movie: There is exactly zilch in it that is an original idea. I question whether or not this was actually intended to go straight to Netflix or if that decision was made in post-production when the creators may have realized that this film would not do well at the box office.

Without giving the story away (although you could correctly guess almost all of what is going to happen in the first 10 minutes of the film) here are a few problems I have with it:

• The film is supposed to be an action / comedy, but it isn't funny outside of a few areas
• The baddies are predictable and the story jumps all over the place to the point where you don't really even understand what the underlying conspiracy is
• Spenser's sidekicks are a non-issue for the most part, and Winston Duke (who plays Spenser's "pal" Hawk) has his talents wasted in this wooden role
• To break up the lack of compelling story, they have a punch up every 15 minutes or so and this gets old, quickly.
• The ending "showdown" sequence has to be one of the worst I have ever seen in an action film. It is completely impractical, predictable, and just plain dumb.

There are a few good things in this film, very few. For one thing, Post Malone is introduced as an actor here, and he actually does a really good job. His excessive face tattoos are going to limit him to prison roles for his cinematic future though, we all know this.

For every great film that Netflix puts out like "The Irishman" it seems as though we get at least a half-dozen films like this. It isn't terrible, but there is exactly nothing unusual about this film. It is simply a rehash of tens of other films that are exactly the same. I suppose we should have seen that coming though.