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The Way of the Gun
The story begins with two drifters Parker (Ryan Phillippe) and Longbaugh (Benicio Del Toro) learning of a surrogate mother Robin (Juliette Lewis) who is carrying the child of a wealthy couple and getting paid a million dollars to do so. Seeing an opportunity too good to miss they stage a daring and bloody kidnap of the pregnant woman and demand 15 million dollars for her safe return whilst hiding out in Mexico. They get more than they bargained for however, as the child being carried belongs to Hale Chidduck (Scott Wilson) a ruthless businessman with ties to the mob. In his employ are two cold calculating bodyguards with their own agenda (Taye Diggs and Nicky Katt) and ‘Bagman’ Joe Sarno (James Caan), who picked Robin to be the surrogate mother to the child of his boss. Its hard to say what turned audiences off of this one, being from the writer of one of the most acclaimed films of the 90’s should have been a big draw. The violence in the film is particularly gruelling at times. The opening scene outside a nightclub, features the main character played by Philippe punching a woman repeatedly in the face which probably turned of his female teen fan base. The best things about this film are the gun battles that book end the film and the dialogue. Not a single word is wasted here and the script is full of quotable lines. The characters talk in the way we all wish we did. There's a lot of philosophy about the life that the characters have chosen to lead. The voiceover by Parker spells out the fact that he and his associate Longbaugh realise they have nothing to offer. Their options being petty crime or minimum wage so they decide to stray off the path and keep things simple and go looking for their fortune, which they see, in the unborn child of a wealthy man. The two lead characters hardly say a word to each other, you get the impression that they have known each other for so long that they don’t need words and you also get the impression that they could stab each other in the back at a moments notice. This was a criticism of the film from many people that you are never sure who is doing what and what their motives are. After the blistering first 20 minutes, the film slows down as we see all of the protagonists and all of their various schemes with regards to the unborn child and the ransom money pan out. McQuarrie relies on the intelligence of the audience to fill in the blanks for themselves and admits that this may have been a mistake in his commentary on the DVD. The film builds towards a shoot-out at a Mexican brothel as Robin gives birth and its here that the film becomes a lost classic. There hasn’t been such a bloody shoot out in an American film for quite a while. McQuarrie got his brother Doug who was a former Navy Seal to choreograph the gunplay and it shows. The gunfire is loud and relentless with no two fisted stylised gunplay, here the emphasis is on realism. A special mention should go to the music in this film by Joe Kraemer, It’s both unusual and familiar and evokes a modern day western atmosphere perfectly. Trivia: The names of the main characters, Parker and Longbaugh, are the real last names of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. With thanks to Chris Holt for this review, get to know him better at... www.myspace.com/holtmeister28 |
In 1995 a film was released called ‘The Usual Suspects’ directed by Bryan Singer. The film made a star of Kevin Spacey who won an Oscar for his performance as Verbal Kint. The other Oscar went to Christopher McQuarrie for the complex and thrilling original screenplay. Five years later he made his directorial debut with this cracking modern western which was pretty much ignored when released in September 2000.
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