With this latest film THE GUNMAN, expert action cinematographer-turned-director Pierre Morel himself carving out an interesting niche market—taking slightly older, quite talented actors and turning them into balls-out action stars. He did it first with Liam Neeson in Taken (only the one), who admittedly had done an action turn here and there in DARKMAN, BATMAN BEGINS, and THE PHANTOM MENACE. But with TAKEN, the actorly Neeson began a trajectory that has made him a fairly bankable action hero (hello, RUN ALL NIGHT). There was a time in Neeson's career when doing action was the novelty; today, the pure dramas are more rare. But it's his gift as an actor that makes us care so much about him as an action star.
Now Morel has enlisted Sean Penn to play Terrier, a sniper working for a mercenary team of assassins in the Congo who has been hired by mining interests to help keep the region unstable so the mining companies can swoop in and take what they want. Terrier has established himself in the area and even helps out his aide worker girlfriend Annie (Italian actress Jasmine Trinca) when he's not busy. But on his last assignment, he is chosen to assassinate the minster of mines for the Congo and is then forced to flee the country without saying a word to Annie, essentially abandoning her, leaving her in the comforting arms of Terrier's jealous co-worker Felix (Javier Bardem, in full crazy mode).
The film jumps ahead eight years. Terrier has returned to the Congo where he works for an NGO (non-governmental organization) helped rebuild from the chaos; he's in charge of drilling new wells. Out of nowhere, a group of mercenaries arrives looking for him specifically, clearly aiming to murder him, but Penn busts out some exemplary hand-to-hand combat and takes them down. The incident triggers ideas in his head that someone might be after those who perpetrated the assassination years earlier, and he goes to London to seek out some of his old buddies to see if they're holding up any better. Turns out many of them are, including team leader Cox (the great British stage actor Mark Rylance), who is a now a big-shot business man, and Felix, who has moved back to Spain with Annie as his unhappy wife.
THE GUNMAN is part mystery, part chase film, part political intrigue story, and it actually feels right in Sean Penn's wheelhouse as the film has a lot to say about the way outside governments and corporations are constantly mixing it up with unstable nations in the name of acquiring natural resources. The film isn't preachy about its message, but I'm guessing they were amplified when Penn signed on. What drew me into the movie were the action sequences. Many of the close-contact, close-quarter battles look so painful and were so skillfully staged that I winced for most of the film. To make me even more envious of Penn as a human being, there are several scenes with him shirtless, and the son of a bitch is ripped. It ain't right, and I don't like it.
THE GUNMAN isn't solely an action film, but when it kicks into that place, it's at its best. An extended shootout in Bardem's palatial Spanish estate is spectacular and gruesome. And the big finale set in a bullfighting ring is just ridiculous enough to work. We also get a glimpse of Idris Elba in the film in a role I won't ruin here, but he's quite good, and he and Penn should make every movie together. I also really like Ray Winstone, on hand as Stanley, Terrier's long-time trusted London buddy who helps him out for part of his mission to find out who's trying to kill him.
The film's biggest miscalculation is thinking we care that much about the relationship between Terrier and Annie, who is angry with him but still very much in love. I don't care. And the amount of time Terrier spends protecting or saving Annie from harm kills the momentum of the main story. The trouble isn't with Trinca as an actor; it's with her underwritten part. I don't know if the screenwriters took her character from the original Jean-Patrick Manchette novel, but there has to be more to her than cowering and being kidnapped.
THE GUNMAN marks the first time that Morel, who also gave us the exemplary DISTRICT B13 and the abysmal FROM PARIS WITH LOVE, is working without his mentor and constant collaborator Luc Besson (both men are French), and if anything, the separation seems to be working to Morel's advantage, proving he can take a serious turn in his stories without sacrificing some truly great action work. It's also nice to see Penn back on the boards in a leading role—his first since THIS MUST BE THE PLACE—not afraid to reinvent himself as he edges toward 55.
I wouldn't go so far as to call THE GUNMAN a great film, but it's pretty strong stuff and likely far better than you might imagine. I've seen it twice now, and it actually felt tougher and make complex the second time. Go for the political intrigue and high-stakes action; stay for the pectoral muscles and two types of gun shows.
