The Way of the Gun fancies itself as something of a modern day Jackie Brown, instead of the frankly dull and straightforward flick that it is.
Mr Parker (Ryan Phillippe – I have been watching way too many of his films lately) and Mr Longbow (Benicio Del Toro) set the tone early. In the first 3 minutes of the film they call a woman the ‘C’ word, then punch her in the face. It was Sarah Silverman, but still that’s pretty bad.
Parker and Longbow are petty thugs who have come to realise that there is little silver lining along their current career path. Instead of performing dangerous work for others, they decide to look for a Big Score to elevate them instantly above their apparent middling destiny.
Opportunity knocks when they hear of a wealthy couple planning their first child via a surrogate. Robin (Juliette Lewis) is the owner of the belly full of arms and legs, but to Parker and Longbow it might as well be full of money. In a bloody shootout they take Robin hostage for ransom, but also quickly realise that perhaps those protecting her might be a little more zealous and well equipped than they imagined.
Still, no-one gets mega-rich with zero risk, so off to Mexico they go.
Despite Phillippe and Del Toro appearing on the poster, this film is as much about the bad-bad guys as it is about the good-bad guys. Part of the reason is that the bad-bad guys are more interesting and multifaceted, there are also more of the them. The hired gynaecologist, Robin’s former bodyguards, their Big Boss and his trophy wife (with a poisonous fake smile), and James Caan as the always calm ‘been there, done that’ right hand man, with several other puppets to string along as fodder to be disposed of when necessary.
Everyone good-bad, bad-bad or in between is too smart and too dumb for their own good. Alliances are formed and broken routinely, people double cross each other at the drop of a hat and many people have relationships and knowledge that is leaked slowly as the film drags on.
And drag it does. Over two countries (admittedly not far from the border of either) the two unlikable groups position themselves to ensure that they emerge victorious, with several sub groups and alliances emerging as crunch time nears. It becomes like the farmer who needs to transport the fox, the wheat and the chicken across a river two at a time. Everyone has different priorities and shouldn’t be left near each other for too long, but they all need each other to prosper. Though I always wondered why the farmer needed a fox, when it is so clearly inappropriate in a chicken farm. An easy solution would be to shoot the fox, sit on the wheat and let the chook fluff about on the boat – how much wheat can he eat in a short trip anyway?
On this night I thought of myself as the farmer, with my three items being spare time, brain cells and this film. I can’t watch the film without using free time, but I can’t watch the film without killing brain cells better used elsewhere.
The unfortunate reality is that the most unnecessary thing in my ‘farm’ was the film. At two hours The Way of the Gun is not overlong, but it just isn’t good enough to warrant the time committed.
Final Rating – 6 / 10. Competent, but entirely non-essential.
