Mark Wahlberg’s latest movie, Spenser Confidential, dropped on Netflix amid a flurry of damningly negative reviews. As the COVID-19, or the coronavirus, pandemic continues to wreak havoc on the planet and drive most major industries to a total halt, the entertainment world has been forced to respond in an effort to stave off the coronavirus’s rapid spread. Major movie and TV productions have been postponed or shut down, festivals have been canceled, most of the country’s theaters have been closed, and studios are finding new ways to get their films to audiences now that self-isolation has been deemed an utter necessity. Major theatrical releases such as Trolls World Tour, The Invisible Man, and Pixar’s Onward are now making their way to at-home releases after short theatrical runs. If there was ever a time for streaming to step up to the plate, it is now.
While Spenser Confidential dropped before the coronavirus panic began, the movie now feels primed for the quarantined masses. The latest collaboration between Peter Berg and Mark Wahlberg sees the pair adapting the long-running and beloved Spenser series written by Robert B. Parker. Spenser is a Boston-based private eye who has been featured in over 40 novels, a 1980s TV series, and a spate of TV movies, which starred Joe Mantegna. Wahlberg stars alongside Winston Duke (Us) as a disgraced former police officer who is released from prison and thrown into a chaotic case involving police corruption, drug trafficking, and murder.
Berg and Wahlberg's collaborations have proven mixed in terms of critical appraisal. While 2013's Lone Survivor was popular enough, many critics took umbrage with titles like Deepwater Horizon and Patriots Day, which fictionalized recent tragic events and seemed determined to make Wahlberg's character the undisputed hero in both. Spenser Confidential is nowhere near the worst movie the pair have made, nor is it the worst-reviewed. That honor falls to Mile 22, which has a 23% approval rate on Rotten Tomatoes. Their newest title currently has a rating of 40% on Rotten Tomatoes and a score of 49 on Metacritic, putting it firmly in the territory of "not good but not horrendously bad."
It’s An Action Comedy With Bad Action and Few Laughs
Lone Survivor demonstrated Mark Wahlberg's ability to helm a good action movie, and when the material is good, like Seth MacFarlane's Ted, he has top-notch comic chops. Spencer Confidential’s biggest problem, however, is that it lacks both good action scenes and any sense of humor. Given that these two elements are supposed to provide the lion’s share of entertainment for audiences, this is the film's clear failure.
"It’s an action-comedy-mystery-thriller that manages to spectacularly fail at all the above, an algorithmic abomination that’s as coldly constructed as it is clumsily made. It’s actually surprising just how flat the whole thing is, given that Berg has experience with bigger budgeted films with a more ambitious scope, but there’s a deadening lack of spark to his direction here which he tries to hide with lively and recognizable soundtrack choices."
"The action is muted, the production design lackluster, and the momentum engineered for frequent bathroom breaks and other household distractions [...] Opportunities to enliven the genre proceedings abound, yet Berg and his team seemingly miss each one with perverse purpose, from flattening the choreography of Spenser’s many punch-ups to wasting the precious natural resource that is Winston Duke’s on-screen charisma."
Mark Wahlberg is Phoning It In
Wahlberg can be a divisive figure among film fans. Some love his old-school action vibes, and others think his particular brand of machismo is painfully out-of-date. It doesn’t help that he has a habit of phoning it in now and then, and that seems to be a big problem with Spenser Confidential, which is not Wahlberg’s finest hour. He has also faced criticism of miscasting, with fans of the original Spenser stories finding him to be a poor fit for the iconic character who inspired a whole generation of detective fiction.
"Wahlberg is so clearly phoning it in that no one would ever mistake him for a Phillip Marlowe-type. I think Wahlberg was going for something understated and cool, but he just comes across as half-asleep. The movie also tries to be a buddy cop comedy, awkwardly shoe-horning in Winston Duke as Hawk, an eccentric, animal loving UFC fighter who’s randomly saddled with Spenser, but it never comes up with anything funny."
"Wahlberg can be a terrific actor. 'Boogie Nights,' 'The Departed,' my absolute favourite 'The Gambler.' In each of those roles, there’s acute myopia inflected in bravado, ego or self-loathing. Wahlberg is sleepwalking in “Spenser Confidential.” It’s not just a lack of charm, no sense of timing for any of the lumbering and laboured jokes [...] What’s more, Wahlberg seems to have aged into 'old man running' before we knew it."
Spenser Confidential is Outdated and Derivative of Better Movies
The biggest problem Spenser Confidential faces is that it feels unnecessary amid a sea of better and more skilfully made action-comedies. Every beat the movie hits feels overtlyfamiliar but with nothing to distinguish itself as unique or interesting. As David Ehrlich of IndieWire succinctly put it, Spenser Confidential "stacks up to 'The Town' like 'Cats' stacks up to 'Singin' in the Rain.'"
"'A buddy movie at its core, Spenser Confidential tries to marry a convoluted detective narrative with dark humor and brutal violence in the vein of a Shane Black film, but lacks the sharp wit and deft storytelling hand to maintain that delicate balance of tone and plot. What you end up with is a movie full of jarring shifts from scenes depicting horrific murders and the devastating emotional fallout to broadly comedic moments featuring Spenser and the various oddballs that populate his world."
Hollywood Reporter (Frank Scheck)
"Spenser Confidential seems to be aiming for a buddy-film, action-comedy vibe, but the problems are that there's virtually no chemistry between Spenser and Hawk, the gags (many of them revolving around Spenser's deepest relationship seeming to be with his dog) are lame at best, and the action is strictly pro forma. Director Berg attempts to keep things light by underscoring many sequences with vintage pop songs, but throwing Neil Diamond's "Sweet Caroline" on the soundtrack during a barroom brawl doesn't prove the soul of wit."
Entertainment Weekly (Leah Greenblatt)
"The duo’s first collaboration for Netflix feels less like a thriller fitted for the small screen than a sort of supersized block of crime-time television [...] But the business of catching and killing unfolds so schematically that it’s hard to invest much in Confidential’s reinforced-cardboard characters and bloody plod of a plot. Even its star’s beloved city hardly merits much exploration beyond a few obligatory harbor shots."
Spenser Confidential, however, still has some fans who are tuned into its inherently disposable nature. If you’re looking for a breezy action movie to waste a couple of hours on from the comfort of your own couch, a few critics say you could do a whole lot worse than what Wahlberg is offering.
Film School Rejects (Rob Hunter)
"The comedy and relaxed atmosphere do most of the heavy lifting here as Berg and friends keep things relatively tame throughout on the action front. There are the handful of fights, mostly fist and foot focused — a bit involving someone kicking Spenser delivers some laughs — while a gunfight and sequence involving a semi-truck mark the only real centerpieces."
"Bringing seminal cinematic work like Roma and The Irishman direct to the customer, Netflix has fashioned itself as a great disrupter of the film business, yet this isn't disrupting anything: it's comfort food, as fast and familiar as a takeaway burger. Wahlberg brings charm, while it's nice to see veterans like Arkin and Colleen Camp, making Spenser Confidential never less than watchable. This is rudimentary detective stuff, treading water for filmmakers and audiences alike."
"Somehow, all this silliness mostly works as peabrained, quickwit entertainment spiked with thoughtless/careless/who cares throwbacky violence, buoyed by crisp comic timing, boasting a dim-written script that telegraphs its ending early and really telegraphs it halfway through. It helps that its relatively old-school crashin’-trucks director thoroughly plays to the strength of his cast. It moves along quick ‘n’ stoopid ‘n’ obnoxious ‘n’ slightly self-aware ‘n’ manly ‘n’ a bit sexist, and all so much more reasonable than a Michael Bay movie."
Spenser Confidential is now available to watch on Netflix.