Cinemavenger

   The funniest, nastiest movie reviews anywhere.

Spenser Confidential

How dumb does Netflix think we are?  Pretty fucking dumb if Spenser Confidential is any measure.  The movie opens with a series of shots of a prison.  There are prison walls, prison guard towers, and an aerial shot of the entire prison.  In case all its shit for brains customers haven't caught on by that point, Netflix throws the location clarification "Prison" up on the screen.  You know, because we might've thought it was Central Park, a strip club, or the United Nations building.  Department of Redundancy Department, anyone?

Really though, what did you expect from a "Marky" Mark Wahlberg-starring remake of a 1980s TV show that people have either never heard of or forgotten almost entirely?  The show was called Spenser: For Hire.  Netflix went all in channeling the 80s and changed that to the Skinemax worthy Spenser Confidential.  I guess Spenser After Hours was already taken.

Spenser is a disgraced Boston cop who, after beating up Post Malone because 2020 and getting out of prison, goes on a rampage to . . . what?  Clear his name?  Nope.  Get revenge?  Not really.  Find a decent slice of pizza in Boston anywhere besides Pizzeria Regina?  Good luck.

As in the TV show, Spenser gets his ass saved over and over again by a large, African American dude named Hawk ("Pre-Deep Space Nine" Avery Brooks in the show and Winston "Marma" Duke here).  Literally every time Spenser is about to lose a limb or get shot in the face, Hawk swoops in to beat down the bad guys.  The racists at Netflix should've just made a show called Hawk with Spenser as the non-threatening gay guy who gives Hawk intel he picks up in Boston's booming, semi-underground, gay community.

All the gay men - and straight women - will get their money's worth when Wahlberg pops his top off 15 minutes in and displays his rapidly aging macho man physique.  Then there's a dog attack scene just to fuck with PETA, and in the end Spenser decides to become an unlicensed private dick for no Earthly reason.

The Netflix numbfucks did nail the shitty look and feel of a bad 80s TV show.  Congratulations?

April 3, 2020