The Gunman
Rated R /
Action, Crime, Drama
Stars: Sean
Penn, Idris Elba, Jasmine Trinca, Javier Bardem, Ray Winstone, Mark Rylance…
**spoilers
ahead**
With two new
movies out this weekend Ron and I decided to start early and take in one of
them on Thursday night. Last night we went
to see the new Sean Penn flick The Gunman. The movie is based on the 2002 novel The Prone Gunman written by Jean-Patrick
Manchette.
The Gunman
is an action movie and in many ways is presented like every other action movie
I’ve seen – which is not a negative thing in my opinion. Sean Penn, who is now 54 years old, looks
great physically! He has obviously been
spending lots of time in the gym as evidenced by his buff and toned body (you
can get a good look at it during a surfing scene later in the movie – yes, I
said a surfing scene). My only complaint
about him in the entire movie is his continual need to smoke a cigarette!
Sean Penn
plays Jim Terrier. Jim is a private
security contractor who also happens to be a sniper on a mercenary
assassination team in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The movie starts in 2006 with images that I
would definitely have rather not seen…but were important for the theme of the
movie. Thankfully the images of starving
babies, war, and other atrocities were brief as they were extremely hard to
look at. While showing these images
there were also clips from news programs as well as voice over discussing things
like the private security contractors, world’s deadliest conflict, rape, vast
mineral wealth, and meeting the demands of the Western world. From this you know right up front that there
will be lots of political overtones throughout the movie.
Jim’s
girlfriend Annie is played by Jasmine Trinca, and exotic and beautiful woman. Annie is an aid worker at a local clinic –
where she gets to see firsthand the results of all of the atrocities in the
Congo. From the way they look at each
other it’s obvious that Jim and Annie are deeply in love…something that seems
to be a problem for Jim’s colleague, Felix (played by Javier Bardem).
During an
operation, which I’m sure was supposed to be one of those “good for the country”
operations but seems more like a “good for greed” operation, Jim kills the
minister of mines of the Congo on the orders of an unknown client, unknown to
everyone but Felix anyway. As a
condition of the successful operation Jim must immediately leave the Congo and
his girlfriend Annie behind. But don’t
worry about Annie…Jim asked Felix to look after her so she’s bound to be in
good hands…right?
Eight years
later Jim returns to the Congo, but this time is not there as a private
security contractor; instead he works for an aid group providing safe drinking
water. See, Jim is a good guy after all. Jim is still having flashbacks from the
minister’s assassination in which he pulled the trigger. The flashbacks are accompanied by horrible
headaches (as they should) which we later find out is because he has “post-concussion
syndrome”. While I don’t doubt that he
would have these flashbacks, I do doubt that a person that can accomplish this
kind of assassination would not have done MANY other things that would also be
causing him duress, yet we never see flashbacks of those.
While working
with the aid group the group is attacked by locals looking for “the white man”. Jim manages to evade death (after killing
most of the others in true action star style) and then commences his trek to
find out who sent them. He is certain it
has something to do with the DRC assassination so he hunts down some of his old
colleagues in London, Terry (played by Mark Rylance), who is now an executive
at the security firm they both used to work for, and Stanly (played by Ray
Winstone), who appears to be a beach bum.
You know that one of these is going to end up being a bad guy for sure.
Jim
eventually ends up in Barcelona, where he finds that Felix and Annie are now
married. This seemed to surprise him but
I doubt that anyone in the audience was surprised by this. After some “as
expected” confrontations between the three of them, and some adultery between Jim
and Annie (you knew that was going to happen right?), the action (and violence)
in the movie really starts to heat up.
It turns out
that Jim has been keeping journals containing evidence of all the things the
security company, including himself, did over the years. Needless to say, the security company doesn’t
want this information to come out….enter Interpol. Of course Interpol is very interested in
obtaining this information and they have the perfect agent for the job – Idris Elba. Idris Elba really doesn’t do a lot in this
movie…but he still looks good just standing there.
The
remainder of the movie is full of action sequences, including a bull fight,
leading up to the “happily ever after” ending.
Ok, so maybe I left out some significant scenes…I don’t need to tell you
everything, do I? You really need to
watch this movie to truly appreciate the action scenes.
I’ve seen
some bad press about this movie criticizing everything from the Africans in the
film not having any lines to speak to Sean Penn’s performance to the degrading
of women to the predictable storyline. But
I enjoyed it. I knew exactly what to
expect when walking into the theater…an action film with political overtones. I thought Sean Penn’s performance was
great. The movie actually kind of
reminded me of the Bourne movies and
the Taken movies….and I wouldn’t mind
seeing other movies with the Jim Terrier character in them. So even though some may not like it…it was a
sure shot for me.
You can find
the movie info on IMDB here:
And the
official site here:
And if you
want to read the novel it was based on you can get that here:
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