Lucas Versantvoort / March 28, 2015
*big sigh* You
know what the main problem with The
Gunman is? The expectations it creates. You’d think that casting Sean Penn,
one of Hollywood’s most intense actors, as your lead, and even having him
co-produce and co-write the damn thing, that your film would at least be
marginally interesting and not just a mindless action flick…which makes it all
the more terrible when The Gunman
turns out to be precisely that.
The film starts out with all that
news footage (so many films like to use) of Congo, presumably to establish that
The Gunman aims to be a political
thriller (by the way: it’s not). Protagonist Terrier’s part of a mercenary team
currently operating in Congo. Penn’s instructed to kill a minister with a
sniper rifle which he does, after which he’s forced to leave the country, but
in doing so, leaving his mistress behind. Eight years later, Terrier returns to
Congo to work for an NGO, but suddenly finds himself hunted down by
mercenaries. He realizes someone must’ve leaked that he killed the minister.
This kick off his quest to discover who betrayed him.
Sounds like it could be pretty god, right?
Right, except the execution is miserable. The film wants so badly for us to
take Terrier’s relationship with his mistress seriously, but just showing them
all lovey-dovey doesn’t come within a country ass mile of getting the job done
and neither does letting her act like a classic damsel in distress. Seriously,
the only ‘active’ thing she does is fleeing from the bad guy’s grasp. The
action is occasionally quite engaging, especially during a Jason Bourne-esque fight
scene towards the end, but the plot never really makes sense. The film wobbles
along during its opening half hour when I suddenly wondered what the
ever-loving point was. It takes a while before the film settles into its main
mystery and it’s nice when it does, but even there you never risk becoming even
mildly intrigued, which also makes the film’s half-assed attempts at
sociopolitical commentary even more pathetic.
When I later discovered The Gunman was directed by the guy who did the first Taken, I realized where the film went
off the rails. You see, Taken was
straightforward up until the moment it introduced the whole underground human
trafficking side of things, but it made the smart move by not spending too much
time on it. The Gunman on the other
hand pays so much attention to Congo and Penn’s character—not to mention the
presence of Javier Bardem and Idris Elba—that you start to think, “hmm, maybe
this film isn’t just some random action flick, but is actually trying to say
something meaningful.” Taken didn’t
have this problem, but because The Gunman
raises this expectation within the audience, it’s all the more crushing when
you realize again and again the film’s got nothing substantial to offer. I
mean, take the clichéd scene where the lovers reunite after eight years. Is it
done with subtlety, some modicum of
taste? No, don’t be ridiculous! Let’s just have her enter his apartment while
he’s shirtless (of course!) and have them gnaw each other’s faces off like in
so many a Hollywood film. Are Bardem and Elba given anything interesting to do?
Nope, of course not. And don’t even get me started on the countless scenes specifically
designed to show off Penn’s bulky torso. I mean, what is the point of that
surfing scene? That was precisely the moment when I started to question the
type of film I was watching. Penn assassinates the Congolese minister, flees
the country and before you can say ‘Baywatch’ we’re greeted with sumptuous
footage of Penn riding the waves…uhh wait, what!? Is this a (political)
thriller or a rom-com!?
It’s obvious the director tried to
do for Penn what he did so successfully with Liam Neeson and what Matthew
Vaughn succeeded in doing with Colin Firth in Kingsman, turn him into an action hero. Naturally, The Gunman fails miserably, but I do
think Penn’s got the intensity to pull off action quite well, if only the end
product exudes some quality as well.
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