In a recent interview with The DePaulia, director Pierre Morel (“Taken”) insisted “The Gunman” isn’t just a stereotypical action film. But if it’s smeared in bloody battles, wrought with near-impossible escapes and clumsily tied together by clownish acting, it is hard to call it anything else.
The film follows Jim Terrier (Sean Penn), a special ops sniper working to secure a safe space for an NGO to work in the war torn Congo. Terrier dreams of marrying his sweetheart Anne, but after becoming entangled with a corrupt crowd and an assassination, he must leave her behind. Eight years later, Terrier is working for an organization in Africa when an attempt is made on his own life and he soon jumps into a paranoid quest to protect himself.
It’s in its action and nihilism where it almost finds its footing. Terrier is a rugged thrill-seeker and chronic smoker who is both unfazed and terrified by his own mortality: he brushes off a brain damage diagnosis with a cigarette drag while plotting how to save his own life. None of the characters are given enough space to breathe – nonetheless become even remotely likeable or empathetic – and maybe this is the point. The film was inspired by the French novel, “The Prone Gunman,” a sparsely-written noir, and likewise each is out for his own self-interest (though Terrier’s love interest Anne, played by Jasmine Trinca, is a desperately dependent damsel-in-distress).
But on-screen, it’s far from philosophical. The film shuttles through a fast-paced and awkwardly complex plot, accented by grotesque and grossly-exaggerated action sequences. These tirades are sometimes fiery and fun, but only give the film a boyishly macho backbone. Time after time, Terrier is splattered with gunfire, left sweat-drenched and bloodied after lengthy and cartoonish near-misses. There’s entrapment within a blazing home, booby traps and a forced climax ripe with sophomoric metaphors at a bullfighting ring
What prevents “The Gunman” from becoming a good film is its flat writing and subsequent acting, with flimsy and laughable dialogue leaving awkward conversations among characters. Terrier is dull and unlovable, Anne is weak and the foes are less than terrifying. What’s left is a film so action-packed that it’s substance-less, and so cliche it’s a parody of itself.
