Director: Pierre Morel
Stars: Sean Penn, Ray Winstone, Javier Bardem, Idris Elba, Jasmine Trinca
After assassinating a government official, Jim (Penn) is forced to leave Congo and the woman he loves, Annie (Trinca). Six years later he’s back working for a humanitarian organisation when he comes under attack. As he tries to unravel a conspiracy to kill him and the people he once worked with, he has to deal with chronic headaches that strike at the worst time.
The Gunman isn’t the worst film ever made. In fact I found myself enjoying it quite a bit even though it’s fairly average. It assembles a good cast but never gives them enough to work with, and they all only provide glimpses of what they could be capable of. The love story is standard fare and there aren’t any real surprises here. It struck me as very old school, in that it felt like it could have come out in the 70s.
There were some exciting and tense sequences, and the story moved through different countries giving a sense of a grand scale, and some colorful activities during the climax. The headache plot I didn’t enjoy as it felt completely false and manufactured to give the protagonist trouble at inconvenient times. It didn’t really play into the plot aside from that so it wasn’t as if it played into the character at all, and that’s really where the film falls down because there isn’t much depth at all. I didn’t feel invested in the characters too much, and the plot itself is a bit more muddled than it needed to be.
It’s one that’s watchable, but I wouldn’t be sad if I had to miss out on it.