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.

War Movie Month: The Thin Red Line (1998)

"Malick's Guadalcanal would be a Paradise Lost, an Eden, raped by the green poison, as Terry would call it, of war. Much of the violence was to be portrayed indirectly. A soldier is shot, but rather than show a Spielbergian bloody face we see a tree explode, the shredded vegetation, and a beautiful bird with a broken wing flying out of a tree"

-Producer Robert Geisler on Malick's vision for the film

This movie marks the return of Terrence Malick, whose last film Days of Heaven, was released twenty years earlier. This movie is a great example of filmmaking. It has a gripping storyline, stunning visuals and stellar performances from a cast with more stars that has ever been seen.

The movie recounts a fictionalised version of one of the battles in the Guadalcanal Campaign during the Pacific War in WWII. Private Witt (Jim Caviezel) has been found after going AWOL and is reassigned to Charlie Company under the leadership of First Sergeant Welsh (Sean Penn). Led by Lieutenant Colonel Tall (Nick Nolte), the men in the battalion are charged with capturing and controlling an island currently held by the Japanese.

The story is accompanied by narration from various soldiers who all ponder the point of war. This narration is usually voiced over stunning landscapes of Queensland (where the film was shot). The narration does not extend as far as the battle scenes, which have Hans Zimmer's beautiful score drowning out the sounds of war. One scene where this is especially prevalent is when the battalion finally takes the Japanese camp. The soldiers run through the camp and kill all who aren't surrendering, but if you were to close your eyes and listen, this is not the image that you get.

There are four main characters that most of the action focuses on. Caviezel, Nolte, Penn and Elias Koteas all carry most of the plot. But it's the cameos that take you off guard. Stars like Adrien Brody, George Clooney, Jared Leto, John Travolta and Woody Harrelson all have tiny parts in the film. I can only imagine that this was due to their excitement at hearing that Terrence Malick was making a film after twenty years and jumped at the opportunity to work with the acclaimed director.

Verdict: This movie searches for the emotional core of war and does a pretty good job and finding it through a sea of heavy themes. Much better than Saving Private Ryan, the other big WWII film that came out in 1998.

The Secret Life of Walter Mitty

If you ask me, I think that Ben Stiller's work as a director eclipses his work as an actor. That's not to say that he's not a good actor, but the films that really stand out for me are the ones that he's directed. And with his first film since 2008's Tropic Thunder, Stiller has made a heartwarming film about living in the moment.

Walter Mitty (Ben Stiller) is a lowly worker for Life magazine, with designs on dating a fellow colleague, Cheryl Melhoff (Kristen Wiig). Walter is prone to having daydreams that leave him zoned out in the real world, much to the discomfort of those around him. One day Walter arrives at work to find that they are discontinuing the printed version of the magazine and are downsizing their staff numbers. The man in charge of this is the abrasive Ted Hendricks (Adam Scott), who wants Walter to track down a missing negative of a photo taken by mysterious photographer Sean O'Connell (Sean Penn).

Ben Stiller is an extremely versatile actor. While he is known for his comedic roles, some of them even bordering on silly (White Goodman in Dodgeball), he isn't afraid to take on more serious roles. Though this film isn't a straight drama, it does have comedic elements to it. But overall, the ultimate message of the film is about living in the moment and discovering who you really are.

Likewise, Kristen Wiig has made a remarkable jump from comedy to the dramatic. Wiig is known for her hilarious roles on Saturday Night Live and Bridesmaids (which she also wrote). But in Walter Mitty she transforms into an actress who can give depth and background to her character.

Adam Scott is hilariously evil in a departure from the usually hilariously nice characters he plays on TV (Party Down, Parks and Recreation). Cameos from both Sean Penn and Patton Oswalt are rewarding.

Verdict: Whilst Walter Mitty is a pleasing ride that does give us some things to reflect on in our own lives, it doesn't really push any boundaries in terms of telling a story.

Gangster Squad

Gangster movies have long been a staple of my movie diet. Since a young age I have enjoyed movies such as Goodfellas, Scarface, Reservoir Dogs and countless other crime flicks. I have always been drawn in by the glamour of the lives that these men lead, but I have also taken away the message of these movies, that although you may have a great life it never ends well. And boy, doesn't it end badly for Mickey Cohen, the main bad guy in Gangster Squad. It seems to me that whenever a something is set in 1940s LA, the go to bad guy is Mickey Cohen. He has been featured in everything from film, books and even video games.

Gangster Squad is the story behind the crusade to bring down real life LA kingpin Cohen, played perfectly and ruthlessly by a stellar Sean Penn. Josh Brolin's John O'Mara is charged to put together an outfit to bring down Cohen, who's been running LA for years. The team is quickly assembled and they have to work outside the law to bring down Cohen, because he has most of LA's cops in his pocket. They destroy racket after racket to flush out Cohen, which eventuates in a classic hotel shootout, but it is one we have seen a million times.

Josh Brolin is excellent as the crusading cop and this is the first movie that I've seen with him since the Coen Brother's True Grit, but the stars that everyone has come to see in this are Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone. It's no secret that I am in love with Emma Stone, every guy who has seen her feels the same way, but her casting in this feels like nothing more than a marketing ploy. Everyone loved her and  Gosling in Crazy, Stupid, Love, but she didn't get enough screen time for me to make a meaningful connection to the character and although she's no ditzy blonde, she seemed like she was only there as motivation for Gosling's character. Although I am a huge fan of Ryan Gosling (he should have won some award for Drive and I am immensely looking forward to The Place Beyond The Pines), he seems like he should stick to being the indie hero that he is. When he stars in these big budget movies I feel as though he doesn't get to be the actor that he can be when you see him in indie films.

Sean Penn's Cohen reminded me a lot of the character he played in Colors and although he played a rookie cop in gangland LA in that one, I couldn't help getting the feeling that he was channeling the motivations he had as that character all those years ago. Of course the real life Cohen didn't share the same fate as Sean Penn did in this movie. Like many of those gangsters all that time ago, he was put away for tax evasion.

For me the real star of this movie was the city of LA. Ruben Fleischer (the director) put together a stunning recreation of the city in the 40s. Now I have to say I am a huge fan of this time period. It was the golden age of Hollywood, jazz music was on the rise, art deco was what everyone wanted. This movie really does do that justice.

Ruben Fleischer, however, maybe wasn't the best choice of director. His previous two films were Zombieland and 30 Minutes or Less, two comedies that both featured Jessie Eisenberg. They are both hilarious movies and this film is by no means a comedy. There was a few jokes early on that were played highly upon, but I felt that they weren't all that necessary.

The action in this movie is stylised and you could read how most of the gunfights were going to play out on their predetermined course. The car chase in the old Cadillacs was a highlight though.

Verdict: This movie is full of the same old cliches and archetypes of the 40s LA gangster film. There were some good performances and the city looked amazing, but in the end it was a film that I won't stick with me too long.