How to watch Play Dirty in New Zealand
Mark Wahlberg walks in the footsteps of Lee Marvin in Play Dirty.
Holy crap, Shane Black is doing an adaptation of Richard Stark’s Parker novels! And it stars Marky Mark! Eh, maybe it’ll still be good…
How to watch Play Dirty in New Zealand
Play Dirty is streaming in New Zealand exclusively on Prime Video from October 1, 2025.
What is Play Dirty about?
Okay, how do I explain this?
Crime novelist Donald Westlake wrote a long-running string of crime novels under the pen name Richard Stark. The hero of these books, Parker, is an amoral, ruthless career criminal who has no compunctions about killing, but adheres to his own professional code. As a general rule, your typical Parker book sees our boy get betrayed by fellow crooks who really ought to know better, before extracting no small amount of revenge.
Parker has previously appeared on screen under various names, being played to excellent effect by Lee Marvin in Point Blank, pretty good effect by Mel Gibson in Payback, and Jesus-Christ-what-are-we-doing-here effect by Jason Statham in Parker, among others (I really like Robert Duvall in The Outfit, myself). Here, he’s being played by Mark Wahlberg in a story that sees him team up with another long-running Westlake character, Grofield, to rip off the mob, a South American dictator, and the world’s richest man. It’s not adapted from any particular novel as far as I can tell, but Shane Black pretty much runs on Stark/Westlake vibes anyway, so we should be fine.
The cast of Play Dirty
Mark Wahlberg is Parker; LaKeith Stanfield is Grofield; Rosa Salazar is Zen; Tony Shalhoub is Lozini; Keegan-Michael Key is Ed Mackey; Nat Wolff is Kincaid; Chukwudi Iwuji is Phineas Paul; Gretchen Mol is Grace Webb; Thomas Jane is Philly Webb; and Peta Wilson is Madge.
Play Dirty trailer
Why we’re excited about Play Dirty
All else being equal, this Parker will certainly be the funkiest of the bunch.
