The Gunman (2015)

.:Not a native English speaker:. After having seen the Movie for the first time after years of ignoring it, i finally gave in and bought myself the Film as Blu Ray, as for the shallow reason of the Cover and mention of Congo. When i first heard of the Movie it was said to be a possible Franchise starter and Sean Penn's take on the Old man taking back whats his, Taken/96 Hours formula. Boy was i on a ride of awkward disappointment of not having any expectations at all. When i bought the film it took about two months until i popped in the Disc and take on a ride where i never would have thought to speak this out loud, on what was an inconsistent near fatal mess with some rare great moments. Before i get to what was for me the personal, but undercooked highlight, i am going to talk about what on paper (depends on how you stand on Penn's political views, i guess) seems like a sure Win. The Cast surely is great, you have 6 great Actors forming the main protagonists consisting of Sean Penn, who has surely some great scenes and moments, Javier Bardem who again plays a great role as some kind of an ex best friend and colleague, Jasmine Trinca, who also plays her role really good and brings some interesting moments (even if there are few), Ray Winstone who, well he is Ray Winstone and has some fun dialogue to, even if his role is a bit of a cliche, Idris Elba which has some good acting but rather forgetable scenes (to be exact, a day passed since i saw the Movie and i cant remember any of his scenes), & Mark Rylance, who might be a great actor but in this Movie he has an awkward way of taling in a calm and rather quiet voice which makes especially later on an essential scene really awkward (Confrontation scene between him and Penn's character). The Film has some great Cinematography and beautiful colors from start to finish, especially the scenes that play in Spain and Congo. There are some cool Action scenes but some of them feel forced taked on the film, as for the reason of their context being rather, lets just say bizzare. Now to what where the two personal highlights that also show the two weakest links in the Film. The first is that the Film deals with the Political climate and corruption of the Congo, which sadly is of rare bread in our World, especially in Movies/TV Shows/Video Games. The film doesn't delve far enough into that field in my gusto, which makes the whole point or glue that holds the plot together more or less shallow. The second highlight and shortcoming is The Love Story, Love triangle between Penn, Bardem and Trinca, this is exacly the part where i thought and told a friend of that Film something like this "I never ever would have thought that i would see a Movie where the Love Story is far more interesting than the Action parts of this Action Thriller flick". I would watch in a heartbeat if there would be some form of reinterpretation of this Film with an emphasis on the Love part (im sure there already exists this Movie in some capacity), the personal surprise for me is that normally i do not like romantic Movies (with rare exceptions), but here it presented itself with best, most dramatic and engaging story of this lost opportunity. It deals with grief, broken promises, broken friendship, redemption, loss, giving up, anger and more. I guarantee you that most of you will agree with me. To be fair, one of the Action scenes that is the best and most inventive i have seen in a long time was after a tragedy that occurs after a dramatic firefight of emotions, which results into an actual firefight, to spoil as little as possible, it is a scene involving a shower, a Burning house and how to escape it the best way while being hunted by mercenary's. So long story short, half arsed mess with some exceptional parts that get drown by its weight

A sniper on a mercenary assassination team, kills the minister of mines of the Congo. Terrier's successful kill shot forces him into hiding. Returning to the Congo years later, he becomes the target of a hit squad himself. The Gunman is without one of the most boring action movies of all time and although it does have some good action sequences and the acting isn't that bad it's still a huge mess of a film with a lot of talking and maybe a 20 to 25 minutes of action, suspense and shooting it's not as bad as maybe some people made it out to be but it's still a pretty dumb action movie that offers nothing new to the viewer except getting bored to death and that's why i'll give the film a much better title such as "The Gunman: Boredom" much better now.

Terrier (Sean Penn) is an assassin working with a covert team on a mission in the Democratic Republic Of Congo. He is tasked with assassinating a key mining official in The Democratic Republic Of Congo and after successfully completing this task he is told to flee the country. Years later Terrier returns to the DOC as a civilian but finds himself under attack by a group of mercenaries who attempt to assassinate Terrier in response to him killing a key official in the DOC. Terrier must now try to establish who is trying to kill him....The Gunman is a film that is set in the Democratic Republic Of Congo, London & Gibraltar so it does provide for some nice on set locations - the news footage in the DOC does give the film a sense of realism as well. Unfortunately, this is one of those films that suffers slightly by jumping about from place to place. It's another one of those films where we flit from place to place trying to establish who did what and who set who up? The trouble is that it moves around so much and jumps from person to person so quickly that it can be very easy to lose track of what's going on - it also doesn't help that the main story isn't that compelling either. Things move along here at a snail's pace and the convoluted nature of the narrative will almost guarantee that boredom will settle in very quickly.The Gunman offers very little we haven't seen before and perhaps the only thing that is of interest here is seeing Sean Penn in this type of role; I got the feeling that Penn had seen how successful Morrel and Neeson had worked in the first Taken film and decided that he wanted a piece of the action. May be Penn wanted to offer the world an alternative 'middle-aged' action star to Liam Neeson and perhaps, in time, this is something that may work out for Penn. However, I think that he may need to look at projects with better material if he is truly able to offer the public a viable alternative in this role.This film is also going to disappoint fans of Idris Elba as he is only in the film for about 10 minutes and doesn't appear till very late in the film (despite the fact that he gets Top Billing here). Ray Winstone shows up and does his usual stick and none of the other actors really make a mark (with the possible exception of Mark Rylance).The Gunman is largely convoluted and boring, but I have to admit that the final 20 minutes or so are excellent - this is really where Morrel is allowed to breathe some life into the picture. The action in these final few minutes is never top-drawer, but it did enough to keep me engaged and it's a shame that the first 90 minutes or so were not up to the same standard.

From the Director of the original Taken comes what is essentially Taken 2.0, re-skinned, rehashed and re-marketed for a different audience to puke back up. But this is Penn's show, a self-obsessed project. Highlighting what a great human being he is. Look at all the humanitarian work he does! Protect the environment! Guns are bad! The last statement though, isn't entirely true. Penn uses guns many a time, so its message is somewhat conflicted. Like the overall point of the film. What are the filmmakers really trying to say about the current economic climate? The answer though is simple and its, well nothing.Penn's character, a bland individual that doesn't deserve the honour of being named, is an ex-sniper or gunman if you like. He's out of the business. For good. That is until his demons of the past force him to confront his fears and health problems. Because what would an action film be without an aged actor, mediocre director and the threat of heart problems in the long run?The Gunman is solid proof that Hollywood has run out of new ideas. Instead the film plays out like a poor man's Bourne Identity, not stylish enough to offer thrills, nor thoughtful enough to make a meaningful statement about the economy. Instead it ponders along boring everyone in its wake. Maybe I would like The Gunman more if it didn't insult my intelligence at every turn, didn't bore me from tears and didn't make me long for the days of Liam Neeson as an action hero. That's how bad this film is. Take note because with a poor script, inflated runtime, zero characterisation and a dull po faced story, The Gunman is not worth your time or money.D