The Gunman

Pierre Morel is the man the brought Taken to the world, so I already knew what to expect when I walked into his latest feature The Gunman. With Sean Penn, Javier Bardem and Idris Elba headlining the film, it can't be that bad right?.....right?

Jim Terrier (Sean Penn) is an ex-soldier working under contract in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. His girlfriend, Annie (Jasmine Trinca) works for the same NGO as he does, in a medical position. Felix (Javier Bardem) works as a contact for Jim and is interested in Annie. As part of his contract, Jim assassinates the mining minister and has to flee the continent. When he returns eight years later, digging wells, he uses some bad-ass moves to foil an attempted assassination on himself and when he begins to investigate, finds his past catching up with him.

The Gunman's plot is in a league of it's own, somehow managing to be endlessly clichéd and at the same time, frustratingly convoluted. It often feels like they're specifically adding unnecessary detail and opening up new story arcs to mask the plot holes. Just for example, early on, there's an attempted assassination on Jim, where the gunmen have vials of some 'no-frills' poison. Jim takes the vials, then somehow gets them past customs to show to his mates in London; that might seem nit-picky but it's just the tip of the iceberg. The characters seem to just spew endless jargon, followed by a "we need to go to (insert exotic location)" which seems like a good excuse to consume more of the $40 million budget, an enormous amount of money for an action thriller that really only has a couple of action sequences.

The denouement significantly improves on the hum-drum storyline, but it covers way too much ground, revealing erroneous details and trying to tie up loose-ends with about as much success as a Llama with a ball of string. The Gunman ultimately takes the path most followed, with a story that's both dull and unoriginal. The opening act set in the Congo only serves as a brief, unnecessary establishing point, and to me, using another nation's crisis as a central story arc, then abandoning it in favour of  the regular girl/villain/revenge story is not just a cop-out, it's an insult to those that are actually suffering.

The characters are no better. Javier Bardem is completely underused and has a very insignificant role, especially given his prominence on the poster. Bardem is a very talent actor, but here he's just playing an under-developed douchebag, and there's no acting around that. Idris Elba is only in the film for about the last twenty minutes, and Sean Penn joins the ranks of middle-aged stars playing bland characters who somehow punch louder than a clap of thunder but deliver lines with the dramatic force of a gerbil. Ray Winstone brings some much needed cockney relief but is unfortunately very-much a secondary character. The two strongest performances come Trinca and Mark Rylance, who I haven't actually seen in anything til now.

Given that Morel is also a cinematographer, it should come as no surprise that the visuals are really this film's only saving grace (though the actual DP on The Gunman was Flavio Martinez Labiano). The gritty look is in no way innovative, especially for the action/thriller genre, but along with some decent sound design, it does manage to build the tension. The fight scenes also seem to be extremely well choreographed, though they cut away so much that it's difficult to actually enjoy them. The most enjoyable element of The Gunman was listening to the elderly couple behind me discussing how ripped Sean Penn is.

If you're the sort of person that cherishes the Taken franchise, then you'll probably enjoy this, though then again there's not that much mindless action here either. Not even the strong cast could save this from being a terrible movie.

The Counselor

The works of Cormac McCarthy have always served as interesting fodder for film adaptations. Indeed both No Country for Old Men and The Road translated his vision perfectly to the screen. However, The Counselor is an entirely original script from him and when you couple that with an immensely visual director, such as Ridley Scott, you get a beautiful film that also has extreme depth and meaning just underneath the surface.

The film is set in the southern United States and it follows The Counselor (Michael Fassbender) as he descends into the drug fuelled world of the Mexican cartels. After a shipment that he had a stake in is stolen, he ends up going on the run, as the cartel behind the other half of the investment believes he is responsible.

The film has many themes and they all seem to be complementary of one another. The largest ones are those of greed and actions and consequences. The Counselor is driven to do many of the things that he wants, primarily by greed. What he wants most is to please his girlfriend Laura (Penelope Cruz) and we can only assume that she is the reason he has driven himself toward this path. That greed also goes hand in hand with the consequences that are a direct result of the actions that he has taken.

All this depth and meaning stems from a superb script from McCarthy. Unlike the other adaptations that I mentioned earlier, whose screenplays had been written by other writers, The Counselor has the unique voice of McCarthy, who has written some wonderfully cryptic dialogue scenes that also appear in his literature.

This film is also spectacular to look at as well and that is largely due to Ridley Scott's amazing vision as a director. The landscapes in the film are amazing, showcasing Mexico and Texas on an intimate scale that I really appreciated.

Finally, the cast of this film is not be forgotten. I know looking at the poster, all you see are the big names and just think it's going to be an empty film. But all the actors are fantastic. I especially want to give praise to Cameron Diaz, as I have not seen her reach a level such as this since Being John Malkovich in 1999. There is also a scene that has cameos from Dean Norris (Hank in Breaking Bad) and John Leguizamo (Luigi in Super Mario Bros., and a ton of other stuff) that I found humourous for some reason.

Verdict: An intense and compelling crime drama that is sure to make you scared of cheetahs and girls on Ferraris.