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In 2008, director Pierre Morel took a chance by casting Liam Neeson in Taken, turning the Oscar-nominated actor into an action star in the process. Now, with his latest crime thriller, The Gunman, Morel tries to do the same for Sean Penn—but with different results.
The Gunman stars Penn as Jim Terrier, a former mercenary in the Congo who was forced to go into hiding, leaving the woman he loved behind, after completing a deadly mission. Eight years later, Jim is back in the Congo—this time working for a humanitarian organization—when a project he’s leading comes under attack. Fearing that the attack is somehow related to his old job, he begins tracking down his former colleagues, only to have his suspicions confirmed: that the shooter has now become the target.
If three Taken films and a number of other action roles (like Run All Night) are any indication, Liam Neeson works as an action star. Sean Penn, however, doesn’t work quite as well. Though the Oscar winner and his bulging biceps can handle the action of the role, he doesn’t have the instant likability that Neeson does. He’s a little too cold, a little too hardened. And while his character has plenty of anger, he’s lacking in heart. Maybe it’s due to Penn’s stone-faced performance, or maybe it’s because the character is flat and underdeveloped—but, whatever the case, it’s hard to care much about what happens to him in the end.
But Jim isn’t the only character that’s lacking. The bad guys aren’t especially interesting. Their hired goons seem to be using skills picked up in mall cop training to take on a guy who spent years in special forces. And Javier Bardem’s Felix—the guy who orchestrated the operation that forced Jim to leave Africa—is uncomfortably insane. But perhaps Bardem’s over-the-top performance was the only way for him to stand out in a sea of otherwise bland, uninteresting characters.
Fortunately, though, there’s still plenty of action and adventure to distract audiences from the film’s flaws. The army of guys who are out to get Jim may not be very smart, but that leaves him with plenty of opportunities to kick, punch, hack, shoot, and explode his way from one city to the next. It may not be a brilliant action movie—but it’s still a slick one.
If you’re simply in the mood for some brainless action, The Gunman will fit the bill. But if you’re hoping for a powerful thriller by a hot new middle-aged action star, you’ll be disappointed. Either way, you’ll get more drama and suspense from Liam Neeson’s Run All Night.
Blu-ray Review:
It’s pretty rare these days to find a Blu-ray release that doesn’t include a single special feature—no behind-the-scenes features, no blooper reel, not even a single deleted scene. But that’s the case for the Blu-ray release of The Gunman. Try as you might (and I definitely did), you won’t find any real extras here—just a digital copy of the film and a collection of trailers for other films. And that’s unfortunate, too—because it would have been interesting to go behind the scenes with Sean Penn and Pierre Morel, to see what went into making this hard-hitting (albeit underdeveloped) adventure.
Listen to the review on Reel Discovery:
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