Son Of A Gun

I don't know how a hero of a movie could be so dumb. Like really dumb. But then again if he wasn't so dumb, the events that cause main plot of this movie wouldn't have happened. Julius Avery's crime thriller is certainly a ride for the audience, but at moments I feel like he dropped the ball.

JR (Brendan Thwaites) is a young crook who is adjusting to his first stint in prison. Eager to prove he is not a weakling, he gets in fights with other inmates and this brings him to the attention of Brendan (Ewan McGregor), a fierce armed robber. Brendan takes JR under his wing and once JR is out of prison, Brendan gets him to do various jobs for him.

The plot of this movie is a little all over the place. Instead of just sticking to one particular part of the criminal life, the movie jumps from a movie about prison life, mobsters and heists. While many of these sequences work well as their own small plots, smashing them together to form a larger narrative doesn't really work. The themes of this movie are also a little too obvious. Throughout the film, games of chess are played by characters who want to prove how smart they are. But the film also labours the point that each character represents a type of chess piece.

The character of JR is intriguing at times, we never learn why he was in prison and his background is hinted at, but never fleshed out. From that we are left to fill in the blanks and give our own theories as to who he actually is. One thing we do know is that he is an idiot and I think he is told this by nearly every character in the film. Thwaites plays him well, although whether he is meant to be a likeable character is a mystery to me.

Unlike the idiot that is JR, McGregor plays the character of Brendan with sharp wit. Brendan can see what is happening around him and the consequences of other's actions with a lot of foresight. McGregor also brings a lot of charm to this violent character, but unlike the other characters, his back story is glaringly lacking.

The character of Tasha (Alicia Vikander) is a bit of a missed opportunity. She only really serves to be a love interest to JR. She hints at a violent and turbulent past in coming to Australia but that is picked up and then dropped almost immediately. She is an Eastern European girl who is bought to Australia with the promise of a passport after she gets a student visa, but ultimately ends up working in a strip club. This was a perfect opportunity to explore the scary and sadly real world of sex trafficking, but it wasn't to be.

The supporting characters only serve to move the plot along and once they have served that purpose, they are unceremoniously dumped. Brendan's partner Sterlo (Matt Nable) is a fun character to watch, but he is killed off soon after he is no longer needed. Also the primary antagonist, Sam (Jacek Koman), is used so negligibly that I didn't know his name for the first half of the movie. Damon Herriman makes a brief cameo as a crazy gun runner in a scene that was a fun break in the tension.

The film's action sequences are rather spectacular. The driving chase scene that takes place is a stand-out sequence, with tense moments and amazing crashes. To see something like that in an independent Australian film is great to see.

Verdict: Despite having some plot problems and the main character being a complete idiot, Son Of A Gun manages to tell an intriguing and fun crime movie.