Review of The Gunman (2015) by Realmuthaf — 09 Jul 2015

In theory, everything was perfect. An action movie directed by Pierre Morel (the brilliant Taken 1 and the awesome From Paris with Love) and starring Sean Penn, Javier Bardem and Idris Elba.

In practice, though, this flick is riddled with problems. The plot is cliche (standard "the agency ties up loose ends and eliminates the agents"), the dialogues are oversized and boring, the love line is too forced (even though Jasmine Trinca is gorgeous) and what is beyond me, the action scenes aren't nearly as gripping and tense as in Morel's previous works. The lead actor Sean Penn presents yet another annoyance: he did work out a lot and got quite ripped for this role and, apparently, he is very pleased with himself, as we get to see his naked torso or at least, his flexed biceps approximately every 5 minutes, when he surfs/takes a shower/changes clothes/has sex/etc. This movie's yet another sin is that it wastes all the supporting talent in favour of Sean Penn's body - Bardem's role just doesn't leave him space to act the way he can and Elba's screentime is just criminally short.

To sum up, it is watchable, but Morel has dropped the bar significantly, and that's rather disappointing.