The Way of the Gun

STAR RATING

INFO

Year: 2000
Running Lengh: 2 hrs. 10 min.
Rated: R
Genre: thriller/action

Cast: Ryan Phillipe, Benicio Del Toro, James Caan, Julliette Lewis
Director: Christopher McQuarrie
Screenplay by: Christopher McQuarrie

PLOT

A wealthy couple's surrogate mother is kidnapped by two partners, Mr. Parker and Mr. Longbaugh, who hope to recieve a hefty ransom.

REVIEW

In 1995, Christopher McQuarrie wrote the scrip for The Usual Suspects, one of my all-time favorites. The movie's screenplay was outstanding, perfect in every aspect. It won McQuarrie a well-deserved Academy Award.

And then, McQuarrie made this...

I must say Way of the Gun is not another cliched, brainless summer flick. However it just isn't that interesting. The plot is fairly original and has potential, but it emphasizes on all the wrong things. McQuarrie fails to create interesting characters and situations, and only the final shootout scene (which I admit was outstanding) had enough excitement.

Another fault in the script is that it focuses too much on secondary characters, rather than on Mr. Parker (Ryan Phillipe) and Mr. Longbaugh (Benicio Del Toro), the main characters in this movie.

Other than that I must say The Way of the Gun is a surprisingly intellegent film that doesn't follow a certain pattern for a typical Hollywood movie.

The acting is quite good, Phillipe and Del Toro do a fine job, but again, they aren't given enough lines. The best performance overall has to be by Juliette Lewis. She was very convicning. James Caan is also in top form.

McQuarrie does a decent job as a director, but the movie's editing is rather poor. The Way of the Gun runs close to 2 hours, when it could have been just fine at 1:30. The pace is surprisingly slow, and a lot of scenes could have been cut.

Overall, The Way of the Gun is not your usual summer mindless blockbuster but it's way too slow paced and uninteresting. Unless you're a huge McQuarrie fan, I'd advise you to wait for video.

to Home Page

to Dani's Reviews

tortured souls have read this review or died trying