It has been seven years since Shane Black’s last film, the muddled misfire that was franchise-revival-attempt The Predator . Play Dirty feels like course correction. Yes, obviously, it’s set at Christmas time — good luck finding a film in his catalogue that isn’t — but there are other familiar hallmarks of the writer-director here, too: deadpan dialogue, dead bodies as punchlines, a hard-boiled throwback tone and a smoky score to boot. It’s nowhere near the high-water mark of the man who was once the world’s best-paid screenwriter — but maybe this is enough, for now.

This is the latest adaptation of the Parker novel series by Donald E. Westlake, a natural fit for someone of Black’s sensibilities. Somewhat like Lee Child’s Jack Reacher, Parker is a coldly efficient tough-guy charac

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