Well... It's Not Bad
Author: sherbetsaucers from United Kingdom
6 February 2007
*** This review may contain spoilers ***
Opening with intrusive, loud music and grabbing your attention straight away Way Of The Gun is definitely a movie that intends to hold your concentration and not let go of it no matter what you might do to try and wriggle free. Not that I did much wiggling, I rarely do these days, must be something to do with my hips.
Starting with our two leads Parker (Ryan Phillippe) and Longbaugh (Benicio Del Toro) (if ever the term anti-hero was to apply to anyone it's them), we straight away realise that neither of these men really care about much in general. We're able to guess this by the way that one punches a woman in the face and head a couple of times, though really she did deserve it, and the other decided to kiss a perfect stranger, before stamping hard on her foot when she let him know just how much she didn't enjoy being kissed. This odd attitude is further re-enforced by the voice-over where we learn that while leads Parker and Longbaugh may believe in some kind of destiny, they have no intention of letting it rule their life. So we find ourselves, as so often we do in these situations, at a sperm bank. Here the pair overhear a doctor talking about a surrogate mother who is working for a very rich couple, and so a fiendish kidnapping plan is made.
What follows is a shoot-out you don't see and a high-speed car chase involving very slow moving cars. The car chase itself is a particular highlight for me. Still, once they have the kidnapped girl, Parker and Longbaugh quickly realise that they are in way over their heads. It appears that when kidnapping it's sometimes a good idea to find out who you are kidnapping from. Our two anti-heroes are not going to give up, culminating in a particularly slick final shootout. For those of you who may have noticed, the names Parker and Longbaugh are actually the real names of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Hands up anyone who thinks their final stand is going to go well?
Coming from the very complicated shaped pen of Christopher McQuarrie, writer of The Usual Suspects we can obviously expect plot twists and turns that will very quickly have us dazed and confused. In ancient Greece it was believed that the sun obviously goes around the earth. Assumptions can be wrong. Apart from one 'surprise' that wasn't all that surprising and a bombshell at the end that, while unexpected also wasn't all that explosive. Having now gained the enmity of McQuarrie for all eternity can I also say that the script itself is well written. The dialogue, while not realistic, is very well written and believable and each of the characters have something about them that we latch onto.
But of course writing isn't anything without decent performances to bring it out. Toro and Phillippe are both very, very cool and slick, despite the fact that they are also portrayed as being inept criminals, (two aspects that I didn't find gelled so well). Taye Diggs and Nicky Katt as the bodyguards/general mooks Jeffers and Obecks get to look very good throughout the movie, Diggs especially impressing with his double-crossing villain. However the two stand out performances come from James Caan and Geoffrey Lewis. Both of these men give fantastically understated performances, with their final scene together in the car being at once very poignant and close to hysterical.
They both have a world-weariness about them that is a fitting counter-point to the slick and stylish actions of the world around them. Caan is obviously reluctant to kill the two men he has been sent to deal with, indeed he clearly likes them far more than the people he is being forced to work with.I do need to make a special mention of the action sequences. The way that the actors move with and handle their guns just feels right. Apart from a couple of insane shots with a pistol the gunplay is very realistic and heightens the feeling of tension and danger throughout the movie.
This is a movie that tries to balance comedy, action and thriller elements. For the most part I think it manages admirably and is generally worth watching. This is definitely one that I enjoyed more halfway through once a friend had arrived and started watching it with me. Now and then you want to be able to grin at a friend and just nod, acknowledging that something you just watched was very cool, gruesome or cool and gruesome.
