Review of The Gunman (2015) by Erik_Imsen — 08 Jul 2015

So Sean Penn went to the gym. After a rather nice workout, he took a good look at himself and thought: "Gee, I'm a ripped, nice and hot mofo! This deserves a treat!".

The treat takes the shape of a film that makes "The November Man" look good and entertaining. Based on a plot written in a tweet, this movies throws at you everything you already saw before: locations, cars, product placement, twists and turns, filming style...

First, the writing makes every character so flat and undeveloped that you simply cannot, despite your best efforts, care for anything happening to them. I guess the unlikeability of Penn's character must have struck the writer who afflicted him with a random, improbably and conveniently easily diagnosed health issue that he will use any chance he gets to try and make you care for our gunman.

Second, the directing doesn't manage to make us forget the very poor writing. Action scenes are scarce and dialogues are boring. The first hour makes it directly to my top ten of longest hours ever. The ending does not make sense one second (Penn is told he will do time in jail after revealing the assassination that triggered the whole story, but miraculously and conveniently finds himself joining his lover (and what a miserable love story) thanks to a timely escape-ex-machina).

With a team so obviously lazy and not even trying to take their jobs seriously, the marketing people had to grab anything they could to sell us this piece of boredom. Hence the bankable Idris Alba who has his name high up on the poster and credits and appears after 70 minutes of film for a screen time not exceeding 5 minutes in a role that is so thin it would insult a C-list actor.

How Bardem or Winston accepted the role they got is a mystery grabbing my attention way more than the actual plot.

So Sean Penn went to the gym, got to expose copiously his ripped upper body and added a fancy producing credit to his name. That's everything positive in The Gunman.