PARKER

UK, 1986, 97 minutes. Colour.
Bryan Brown, Cherie Lunghi, Kurt Raab, Elizabeth Spriggs, Bob Peck, Ingrid Pitt.
Directed by Jim Goddard.

Parker is a thriller with Bryan Brown playing his usual straightforward role. He is a businessman with wife and mistress who is abducted. After release, he decides to investigate what has happened to him – which leads to dramatic confrontations. The film is enjoyable as a thriller and psychological drama. It was directed by Jim Goddard, prolific director for British television whose next film was Shanghai Surprise, the film with Madonna and Sean Penn which received cruel and hostile reviews.

1. A thriller? Its style? Jigsaw puzzle?

2. The German and British settings? Realistic? The musical score and its mood?

3. The title, the focus on David Parker, Bryan Brown’s screen presence? As a person, the themes?

4. The introduction and the puzzle? Laredo and its mood – and evocation of the West? The later John Wayne? Filming? The group?

5. Parker, out of nowhere, the inn, the police, the interrogation? Information: Australian, British, Germany?

6. The jigsaw pieces and their connection? Jillian and her relationship to Parker, the sexual relationship? The years? The opera, the sister and the memories? The importance of the opera? The taxis, the abduction, the torture, talking, the fall while exercising, the gun at the head – and Parker being let go?

7. The police in their inquiries, disbelief? The police assistant? The drawings, the questions, the corpses? The police inspector as a character, the end and the interaction with Parker?

8. Parker’s character, and the people around him? His wife? Germany, the truth, his return, resuming his life, relationship with his wife and children? His friends? The reconstruction, the dog, the car, vengeance?

9. The wife and her particular angle, the children?

10. The web with drugs, bosses, the group and the terrorists, Jillian’s role, the deaths of so many?

11. The assassin, the violence, Parker and his killing him?

12. The brother, the drugs, giving the heroin? Help, the destruction?

13. A drama in the contemporary world, an ugly world, the world of drugs and violence – and the effect on ordinary people’s lives?