‘Spenser Confidential’: Mark Wahlberg’s turkey on Netflix

Peter Berg's Spenser Confidential streaming on Netflix can tempt you for three reasons.

It is the first Mark Wahlberg film that has been exclusively released on Netflix. That will excite his fans who had loved him in The Italian Job, The Departed, The Transformers live-action franchise and several other films.

The Netflix film is the fifth one for which the fairly reliable duo of Berg and Wahlberg have teamed up after Lone Survivor, Patriots Day, Mile 22 and Deepwater Horizon.

That the film has been released while millions remain self-isolated worldwide is the third reason why it will find more viewers.

The bad news for Wahlberg fans, however, is that Spenser Confidential is littered with stereotypes and seen-before moments. That is a major disappointment because the Berg-Wahlberg duo has fared much better in the past.

The characters have the names of those in Robert B Parker’s much-loved Spenser novels, while the story is loosely based on Wonderland, an Ace Atkins novel.

Let down by a half-baked screenplay, however, it fails to engage the viewer who continues to expect a smart twist or two but gets none.

Mindless violence and freely hurled four-letter words are the film’s USPs. Has that worked? It has not.

Spenser, as shown in the film, is a short-tempered Boston cop who has spent five years behind the bars for assaulting his commanding officer. He cannot suffer nonsense and beats the hell out of people who mean trouble in action-packed sequences that pop in and out of the narrative.

Some other characters also share his violent streak, giving rise to pointless sequences that seem to have been incorporated and executed in a hurry.

Spenser sets out to take down a street gang after two police officers are murdered. We come across bad cops, drug dealers, dead bodies and lots of violence, whose presence contributes to the running time without making any value addition to the story.

Seen alongside Spenser is Hawk, a fighter played by Winston Duke (Black Panther, Avengers: Infinity War, Avengers: Endgame). Duke is ordinary largely because Spenser’s is the author-backed character while Hawk has little to do.

Wahlberg with the meaty role seems to have sleepwalked through his performance. Iliza Shlesinger, who plays his eccentric girlfriend, rises above the script during her limited onscreen time.

Attributing Spenser Confidential’s failure to Berg's mediocre direction alone would be a mistake. Screenplay writers Sean O’ Keefe and Brian Helgeland are the real architects of this mindboggling mess.

Spenser Confidential, in short, shows a criminal waste of possibilities left unexplored, which is a pity.