Review of The Gunman (2015) by Nick C — 19 Nov 2015

With Pierre Morel returning action with a film which sounded very much like his prior work on Taken (2008), all I hoped for from The Gunman was some solid action scenes.

Ever since the release of Pierre Morel's Taken, the over-50 action hero genre has been thriving with contemporary action films which are reminiscent of classic westerns that dealt with the struggles of age. The Gunman serves as Sean Penn's shot at the genre and the gimmick is bolstered by the fact that he is far from a conventional action star. The narrative seems to loosely fit his profile since Jim Terrier is a man working for a humanitarian organisation while being a mercenary on the side, capitalising on his real-life activism. But what could have easily been both a genre film and a star vehicle is burdened by The Gunman's insistence on being something more than it actually is.

The first thing to take one of in The Gunman is the poor lighting. Even the poster for the film predicts a lack of colour throughout the experience which carries over to the entire film through a collection of scenes which consistently happen at night without the Hollywood convention of genuine visual coherence. However, the actual problems in The Gunman are far from technical. There is sporadic appeal in some of the scenery for one thing and the colour scheme during the daytime sequences has some slight spirit to it. Nay, The Gunman falters in the narrative department.

The Gunman has more than enough to warrant a comparison to Taken, but it's poor form as a film comes from a different sector. The main thing I found at fault with The Gunman was that its title promised an action-rich generic contract which was not delivered. Nobody with a sensible mind would go in search of a groundbreaking narrative, particularly those who have considered Pierre Morel's track record. In actuality, the fault lies in the fact that The Gunman pretentiously pretends that it has a story worth telling. The narrative is packed with cliches, familiar plot points and annoyingly predictable plot twists yet astoundingly short on action. The screenplay wastes what could have been a guilty pleasure in the style of Taken on a thriller which takes itself very seriously without recognising who its audience is. It does no favours for Sean Penn either because his muscular stature is the only innovation he introduces to his role as a shallow action hero. So when he is forced to deliver dramatic material, it comes off as unnecessary and forced. I don't know whether this is a commentary on the script or the actor, but neither are in prime condition for The Gunman.

The lack of action rings true as a real betrayal. After one brief action scene around the start, The Gunman doesn't explore action again until the end of its first hour. And after having been dragged through such a cheap plot, I just didn't care anymore. Like I said, my expectation for entertainment in The Gunman rested predominantly on the quality of the action scenes. Since Pierre Morel delivered good action in Taken and District B13 (200_), I loosely hoped that he would repeat it in The Gunman. But at the same time my awareness of the low standard for contemporary action scenes made me uncertain. It is clear that some of those issues are present in The Gunman, albeit not to the same extent of atrocities such as Taken 2 or A Good Day to Die Hard. The Gunman's editing is of a higher standard because it is very quick yet still at a pace where everything remains visible. But the same cannot be said about the cinematography. The camerawork is mostly a lot of closeup shots hampered by sporadically strange angles but more so by a lot of shakycam. It's not to the same destructive extent as most contemporary action films, it's just a little jarring. So in essence the action scenes in The Gunman are good enough to remind us of Pierre Morel's skill for working in the genre whereas the quantity of them is the downfall of the feature.

One of the gimmicks of The Gunman is that it boasts an international cast of critically actors. Yet their acclaim rests on performances far from the caliber of The Gunman as this feature ends up as just another hump in a road to far better films.

As I've already explained, there is a lot setting Sean Penn back from succeeding in The Gunman. Though his muscular stature is certainly impressive, it's obvious that he needed to have his shirt off more for this to actually do any good. He has clearly worked hard for a strong stature for this role, but it doesn't pay off since he rarely puts them to use for the sake of simple visual appeal or action scenes. When he does he has impressive fight skills, but this just makes the final product even worse when there is no practical value in it all. Instead, he spends more time delivering lifeless material which is blunt in its artificiality. The two-time Academy Award winner does not have the capabilities to rescue the screenplay of The Gunman with his particular set of skills, rather getting taken down with it. There is no flare in his line delivery and no sense of humanity, nor is there an effective sense of relentless patriotism that can make a cool action hero. In essence, Sean Penn's role in The Gunman proves to be a strictly physical one and yet nobody saw fit to focus on this notion. It's another clear sign of misguided focus from director Pierre Morel.

And even the presence of other prestigious actors in The Gunman fail to make an impact. I had hopes that something good would come out of the presence of Academy Award winner Javier Bardem, yet he made even less of an impact than Sean Penn. For one thing, his role in the film is extremely diminutive and so he receives little screen time to actually make any kind of an impact. And yet even when he can be seen, his character is such an arbitrary and generic supporting character that it is one undeserving of an actor as talented as Javier Bardem. All I can think of is that Javier Bardem must have needed a brief break between far superior roles where he could rest up yet still earn a big paycheck because it's difficult to believe he would get any other value out of the experience. Since the material is so poor I don't place any blame on him and if it was easy money then it's something he has earned in many other performances, but the fact is that Javier Bardem's effort in The Gunman is extremely forgettable.

Receiving even less screen time is Idris Elba. Stuck with the same weak screenplay as everyone else, Idris Elba's sophisticated demeanour does little to break free of The Gunman's shackles on all the actors. Even though he has the appeal of his natural persona, there is only so far it can go with a meandering screenplay and such little screen time. It hits that limit as soon as he comes on screen, and fans of his are bound to be frustrated at the blatant waste of his skills. But then again, so should everybody else.

So The Gunman boasts some semi-decent action moments, but they are too few in quantify while the film favours.