Review of The Gunman (2015) by Aaron S — 17 Jan 2016

Actually a pretty decent action thriller. Its not for everyone but its better than the critics say and a pretty entertaining film if your in to these types of movies. Sean Penn does a great job in the lead role and does fine as an action star. I keep hearing all these complaints about how there are so many shots of his physique but who cares the dude got huge for this movie he's playing an action hero. look at every movie he's in, the guy is a huge method actor and always gets super deep into his roles. The rest of the cast is okay Bardem's kind of a joke as sad as that is. The love interest isn't awful she does a decent job in her role but is mainly just a damsel in distress. Mark Rylance does well and I expect we will here more from him since he just earned himself a oscar nod. Ray Winstone does well too and Idris Elba's somewhere in there too and he does okay I guess.

Pierre Morel is a man that knows how to film action because when it goes down it is fast, brutal, and intense. Nothing stylized just hard hitting beatdowns and realistic gunfights. Sean's character uses a mix of krav maga and mercenary training to take down baddies in the most real and effective ways possible. Also I liked how his character wasn't portrayed as a superhuman he gets the shit kicked out of him the whole movie. You also get to see him use his brain over his brawn in a couple of sequences and showed he could outsmart the enemy as well as taking them out in a firefight.

As good as I think this movies is, there are a couple downsides. We've all seen this plot before and I felt like they should have focused less on the love story and more on the action as this same director did with Taken. I think Penn really tried with this movie he just didn't realize that most people have seen this plot before and it wont appeal to the general audience. If you are a action junkie like me though and appreciate good action sequences, you should check it out.