Whether dressing up as vicar, or as Jennifer Lopez's cowboy boyfriend, Statham has rarely seemed so versatile
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There are people who think that all Jason Statham films are identical. Those people are wrong. For example, The Transporter (where Jason Statham played a transporter) is completely different to The Mechanic (where Jason Statham played a mechanic). Then there's The Expendables (where Jason Statham played an expendable), which couldn't have been more different to The Bank Job (where Jason Statham played a bank job).
All of which means that Jason Statham's next film, Parker, could legitimately be about anything. Obviously there's a very good chance that he'll play a parker in it, but other than that it's wide open. Parker – which co-stars Jennifer Lopez – isn't out until early next year, but a trailer has just been released. Let's take a closer look, and try to work out what role Jason Statham will take in it …
Well, we've cleared that up nice and early. In Parker, Jason Statham will play a vicar. A lovely old grey-haired, short-sighted vicar. So take that, Statham critics. It looks like Parker will be a huge departure from the one-note action films you've come to expect from him.
Or maybe not, because it turns out that Jason Statham will actually play a lovely old grey-haired, short-sighted vicar with a gun. But let's not be too hasty. Perhaps he's only using the gun as a last resort to scare off youths that have been troubling his parishioners. Parker could still feasibly be a departure for Statham.
Now Jason Statham isn't a vicar at all. Now he's a menacing clown instead. Except, wait, that isn't actually Jason Statham, is it? It's Michael Chiklis, the American Jason Statham. Sorry. But there's Jason Statham in the background. He has taken his wig and dog collar off, so he really wasn't a vicar after all. That departure is looking less and less likely, isn't it?
Especially since it turns out that Michael Chiklis ordered a hit on Jason Statham after a bungled heist and left him for dead. So Parker isn't a film about a vicar or a clown. It's a gormless action film about bloodthirsty revenge. Fine, Statham critics. You may have had a point.
Jason Statham also plays a cowboy in Parker. A cowboy called Daniel Parmitt from San Antonio, Texas. Or, as Statham prefers to call him, "Dernyurl Pyarmunk frurm Snanternierexers". I don't know why he has decided to become a cowboy all of a sudden, though. Maybe he just really enjoys dressing up.
And now he's Jennifer Lopez's boyfriend, too. So already Parker is about Jason Statham the vicar, Jason Statham the crook, Jason Statham the hospital patient, Jason Statham the cowboy and Jason Statham the Jennifer Lopez's boyfriend. He really likes his costumes, doesn't he? Perhaps Parker is a big-budget Hollywood remake of Mr Benn.
Here we see Jason Statham ordering Jennifer Lopez to take her clothes off. This is probably because he wants to wear them himself, and spend a portion of the film miming My Love Don't Cost a Thing into a mirror, such is his newfound enthusiasm for costume changes.
Statham's next costume change sees him dress up as every character from every film that he has ever been in. You know, just for the fans.
Now he's playing Sylvester Stallone in The Specialist, and he has roped in Jennifer Lopez to play Sharon Stone in The Specialist as well, the sicko. Presumably after this, Statham dresses up as a baker, a dog, Peter Pan, an irate Mediterranean lorry driver, Lady Gaga, a milkman, a spaceman, Mickey Mouse and his own mother. If that's the case, I'm definitely buying tickets for Parker.
