The book series gave way to the TV series Spenser for Hire (1985-1988) with the perfectly cast Robert Urich and Avery Brooks as Spenser and Hawk. That was followed by four lifetime TV movies in the mid 1990s.
Joe Mantenga starred in three A&E TV movies and also performed several series audio books in the early 2000s. With the passing of Parker author Ace Atkins took over writing the novels in 2012.
Fans of those previous incarnations of the character (like myself) will find a very different Spenser in the new Mark Wahlberg movie Spenser Confidential which premiered this past Friday on Netflix. While much has changed there will be a number of familiar elements for longtime fans.
In this new film directed by frequent Wahlberg collaborator Peter Berg (Patriot's Day, Lone Survivor, Deepwater Horizon) we find Spenser as a former Boston patrol officer sentenced to a five year prison term for beating up corrupt police Captain Boylan (Michael Gaston). Upon his release, Spenser is taken in by his old boxing coach Henry Cimoli (a perfectly cast Alan Arkin in the one character taken unaltered from the books) and becomes roommates with aspiring MMA fighter Hawk (Winston Duke). All Spenser wants is to get his truckers license and move to Arizona to start his own shipping business, yet fate intervenes when Captain Boylan is brutally murdered and an old friend of Spenser's is framed for the crime. It's time to put those old detective skills to use to clear a friend and stop the bad guys.
Loosely based on Ace Atkin's 2013 novel Spenser: Wonderland the adaptation is written by newcomer Sean O'Keefe and Oscar Winner Brian Helgeland (he also wrote screenplays for the adaptations of LA Confidential, Blood Work, and Mystic River). The film is entertaining and fast paced, director Berg knows how to stage a fight scene, and is really modeled on the thriller/mystery starring-vehicles of the 1980s and 1990s like Stallone's Cobra, Arnold's Red Heat, Bruce Willis's Striking Distance, and Clint Eastwood's Tightrope to name a few. It is the kind of movie where a character gets stabbed in the ribs with a shive, then he puts a Band-Aid over the wound and it's like it never happened.
Wahlberg's Spenser is truly a Boston everyman no longer a professional private eye (originally inspired by Chandler's Phillip Marlowe) he is closer to the characters Wahlberg has played in The Fighter and Four Brothers. Retained from the books and previous TV incarnations he is a former boxer with an Arthurian moral code for doing what he believes is right. Here Spenser is still finding his way whereas in the books he arrived fully formed and changed very little through the years.
Winston Duke's Hawk is a completely new incarnation no longer the ultra smooth fine silk wearing mercenary, here he is a up and coming MMA fighter being trained by Spenser and Henry. The son of murdered community activists he enjoys organic salads and oat milk and has Spenser's moral code for helping the helpless.
It would be remiss if I did not mention Iliza Shlesinger's scene steaming turn as Cissy, Spenser's former/current girlfriend. Gone is the stuffy psychologist Susan Silverman, in her place is the hard talking take no prisoners small business owner who can argue as well as Spenser can punch.
I hope they make more of these films, as a longtime fan of Spenser. Parker's novels were what really got me into loving books and pleasure reading, I was a late bloomer in that respect as it was not till the early 2000s when I began gravitating toward traditional novels. Spenser and Hawk are like old friends that make right what once was wrong and life is just a bit better with Spenser around.
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