THE WAY OF THE GUN (2000)
** / *****
REVIEW BY JOHN ULMER (Copyright, 2004)
"The Way of the Gun" is a motion picture far too heavy on style and
less so on substance. Obviously inspired by the post-modern rampage of
Quentin Tarantino, the director and screenwriter, Christopher
McQuarrie, is much more interested in blood and guts than relying on
his own story to carry the picture. I like action movies and "The Way
of the Gun" bored me from beginning to end. I also like when action
films happen to pick up the characteristics of generally smarter
movies. I saw, heard, and felt no wit while watching "The Way of the
Gun." What a mess.
The movie is raw and brutal and contains a fair emount of fierce
energy, but to what good measure? Benicio Del Toro and Ryan Phillippe
play the typically inept criminals who manage to kidnap a surrogate
mother (Juliette Lewis) and more or less hold her for ransom. They
travel past the border into Mexico where all hell breaks loose. The
pregnant woman's child belongs to a powerful crime lord who is eager
to have his child returned to him. Enter James Caan in a suitably
uncomfortable role as the "laundry man" who tries to return the woman.
The problem is that she doesn't want to be rescued. Many gritty
Mexican shoot-outs follow.
The movie obviously takes some inspiration from John Ford's "The
Searchers" and Martin Scorsese's "Taxi Driver" with its reluctant
heroine subplot. In "The Searchers" the point that the girl didn't
want to be "saved" from the ruthless Indians was less subtle than in
"Taxi Driver," which delivered the message more powerfully but yet
equaled the other film's greatness (if not surpassed it). Jodie
Foster, as Iris, didn't really want Travis Bickle (Robert De Niro) to
"free" her. Lewis does not want to be liberated in "The Way of the
Gun" because she realizes what shall become of her child if she were
to return home. This is an amusing moral dilemma but is not very
convincing. Lewis once again overplays the screwball nature of her
character, inadvertantly creating a strange hybrid of greed and
unsatisfying ambiguity.
That's probably one of the biggest faults of the movie. We don't give
much of a hoot for any of the characters in "The Way of the Gun."
Benicio Del Toro literally stumbles his way through the scenes with a
spaced-out look on his face, as usual, but at least in "The Usual
Suspects" his character had some dialogue and came off, at the bare
minimum, as an interesting individual. He's a very good actor but he
needs to start expanding his reaches a bit more -- I have yet to see
him play a character who looks like he is NOT on drugs.
Phillippe did not impress me with "Cruel Intentions" and he
unfortunately did not impress me in "The Way of the Gun." The poor
casting on his part is another one of the film's major
miscalculations. Who in the world thought this kid could act?
Prior to crafting "The Way of the Gun" McQuarrie penned the script for
"The Usual Suspects," which was clever because it knew how to juggle
an engaging and mysterious story with overly-competent direction by
Bryan Singer ("X-Men"). Had Singer directed "The Way of the Gun," the
result might have been a much better movie. Had some serious casting
changes been made and some revisions to the screenplay, I am convinced
that this could have been a great motion picture. It just needed a few
vital ingredients, most notably more likable and believable characters
and less tired situations involving the same-old. What a waste of
space.
- John Ulmer
http://www.wiredonmovies.com
e-mail: johnulmer2003@msn.com
========== X-RAMR-ID: 37615 X-Language: en X-RT-ReviewID: 1274323 X-RT-TitleID: 1099932 X-RT-SourceID: 1382 X-RT-AuthorID: 6769 X-RT-RatingText: 2/5
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