Should you watch this at weekday movie ticket prices? No.
Should watch this for free? If you can just fast forward to the action sequences, yes.
Secret ending? Thankfully, no.
Running time: 115 minutes (~2 hours)
“The Gunman” is an action movie about an ex-soldier who returns to right the wrongs that he has committed, and finds a plot that’s much deeper than he expected. It stars Sean Penn (Jim Terrier), Jasmine Trinca (Annie), Javier Bardem (Felix), Ray Winstone (Stanley), Mark Rylancd (Cox), and Idris Elba (J Barnes). It is rated NC-16.
“The Gunman” is yet another offering in what appears to be the emerging genre of action movies starring old men that look far too geriatric to be believably fighting off mooks half their age. In any case, it’s directed by the same person who did “Taken,” so you can expect more of the same action. Unfortunately, it takes a genre that’s already devoid of a good story and replaces any narrative flow with even more (good) action.
Highlights
Great action scenes
The stunts are pretty incredible, given Sean Penn’s age and the amount of work required. Fight scenes are well choreographed, and the pyrotechnics are executed with aplomb. While the action can get violent at times, it’s not overly so, and helps adds to the sense of realism while giving credibility to the capabilities of the protagonist.
Letdowns
Cheesy premise
A tale of a war torn African country that has its leader assassinated, a land that only a muscular former soldier running around topless with a surfboard can rescue. The opening scenes establish this cliche-ridden premise, and you can barely squeeze another stereotype in. The producers certainty spared no thought in making every situation and set up as corny as possible, in a movie that takes itself far too seriously.
Nonsensically loud sound effects
Most of the film has the characters speaking in soft tones, to highlight the severity of their situation perhaps, or to show just how masculine the hero is. So when every explosion and every gunshot has its volume maxed out, it makes for a startlingly loud contrast that makes no sense. Perhaps it’s aiming for a real and gritty feel, but all this really does is show that they hired one sound editor to do the dialogue, another sound editor to do the audio effects, then slapped both tracks together to shove into cinemas.
Terrible dialogue
“I feel so trapped.” This was a line from the movie, and perfectly echoed how I felt when watching it. The dialogue is functional – it tells you what the protagonists and antagonists are doing, why they they are doing it – but little else beyond that. There’s no thought or art out into crafting the exchanges between characters. It feels like they just inserted scene directions and character notes verbatim into the mouths of the characters, and it does nothing to help an already insipid movie. “I hope you get my drift, cowboy.”
Corny soundtrack
The music cannot be more on the nose than it already is, what with the complete lack of subtlety when it comes to the choice of tracks used. The accompanying pieces sound like they were bought ten years ago, simply because they sound so dated and cheesy. Scenes that contain key reveals or twists are ruined because a tense music piece plays immediately instead of smoothly fading in or seguing from another, gentler piece. The only saving grace is that whoever laid the music tracks isn’t tone deaf.
Bland protagonist
It says a lot when the protagonist seems to have met his end and no emotions are evoked. That’s exactly how you feel when the throaty Jim apparently meets his end. You expect him to stand up in another two minutes anyway. There’s no relatability to his situation and neither does his character create any empathy. He’s a strapping old man, for sure, but no amount of tears shed (which he does) will make you care any more for this two dimensional excuse of a character.
“The Gunman” is a series of fantastic action scenes strung together by a paper thin narrative that doesn’t make sense. It’s an excellent example of what happens when you rip out any sense of story in favour of jamming in more action. If feels like they only hired a professional video editor and stunt coordinator, and got interns to do everything else. While it will definitely satisfy your craving for action, you might end up cringing too much to actually enjoy the movie.
“The Gunman” opens in cinemas 9 April, 2015 (Thursday).
This review was also published on Yahoo Singapore.
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