Way of the Gun (2000)

Welcome back, glad I have had so many view from the Frozen review.   Now for something completely different.   

Movie: The Way of the Gun (2000)
Rating: R

Starring: Ryan Phillippe as Mr. Parker, Benicio Del Toro as Mr. Mr. Longbaugh, Juliette Lewis as Robin, Taye Diggs as Jeffers, Nicky Katt as Obecks and James Caan as Joe Sterno
Score: 6.5 out of 10 stars
Family Friendly: 0/5 (Violence, a lot of violence)
Recommended: If you wanted to see a Micheal Mann film with a low budget....

Plot Summery (No Spoilers):
Two Criminal microminds try to kidnap a expectant mother for ransom, and nothing goes right for them.   



Plot Summery (Spoilers): (From Wikipedia)

Parker and Longbaugh are at a sperm donation facility, where they overhear a telephone conversation detailing a $1,000,000 payment to a surrogate mother for bearing the child of Hal Chidduck. Parker and Longbaugh resolve to kidnap the surrogate, Robin, but their attempt escalates into a shootout with her bodyguards, Jeffers and Obecks. The kidnappers are able to elude the bodyguards, who are arrested.

Jeffers and Obecks are bailed out and returned to Chidduck by Joe Sarno. As Sarno begins coordinating Robin's rescue, Longbaugh contacts the surrogate's gynecologist, Dr. Allen Painter, and orders him to a truck stop to examine Robin. After the examination, Painter returns to Chidduck, and it is revealed that the doctor is Chidduck's son.

Longbaugh calls and demands a $15 million ransom. Jeffers and Obecks, tempted by the money, begin forming a plan to save the child and keep the money. As Longbaugh hangs up the telephone outside a motel, he is approached by Sarno, who offers to pay $1 million if they surrender Robin and simply walk away. Longbaugh declines the offer and returns to his room, where Parker and Robin are playing cards. Sarno then returns to Chidduck's home to plan the next step.

Jeffers comes to realize that Robin is Sarno's daughter. Jeffers, Obecks, and Painter leave to meet with the kidnappers, while Sarno departs separately with the ransom. At the motel, Parker is having second thoughts. As he confers with Longbaugh outside the motel room, Robin takes the opportunity to seize a shotgun and barricade herself inside.

A woman and a gun

As sirens are heard in the distance, Parker and Longbaugh hastily escape, and Robin emerges just as Mexican police arrive, followed by Jeffers, Obecks, and Painter. As Painter and the bodyguards try to persuade Robin to leave with them, the officers pull their guns and order everybody onto the ground. Parker and Longbaugh open fire from a nearby hilltop, and the shootout leaves the two officers dead and Obecks wounded. Jeffers shoves Painter and Robin into his car and drives off.

Parker and Longbaugh torture Obecks to learn Robin's location, while Jeffers confines Robin in a room in a Mexican brothel. Jeffers forces Painter to perform a Caesarean section to retrieve the baby, despite Robin's confession that the child is hers and Painter's and is not Chidduck's. Meanwhile, the heavily armed Parker and Longbaugh infiltrate the brothel. The ensuing gunfight, which leaves Parker wounded, turns into another standoff, until Painter shoots Jeffers. Outside, Sarno arrives with a group of men and the ransom, which they stack in the courtyard. Parker wants to kidnap Robin and Painter again, but Longbaugh, guilt-ridden after seeing her condition, responds: "She's had enough". Despite realizing that the money is bait, Parker and Longbaugh charge headlong into an ambush.

All of Sarno's men are killed in the ensuing firefight. However, Sarno manages to shoot and cripple the already wounded Parker and Longbaugh, and then calls for an ambulance. Painter emerges with Robin and the baby. Lying in a pool of blood, Parker and Longbaugh call out to Sarno, informing him that the baby is in fact Robin and Painter's, and thus Sarno's grandson. Parker wonders aloud if this fact will influence Sarno to let them keep the child. Robin and the baby are then taken away in the ambulance with Painter, Sarno and the money, leaving Parker and Longbaugh to die.

Days later, Chidduck's wife reveals that she's pregnant.

My Thoughts:

Yes, she is that woman from that TV show...

I am a bit conflicted with this movie.   Mostly since it is about three steps away from being a great movie, and two steps away from being utter trash.   

Back in 2000 there was a bunch of "Reservoir Dogs/Pulp Fiction" clones, movies with impressive output of violence slathered over with pseudo-deep thinking.  By and large these films took everything that is bad about a Quentin Tarantino film, and remove all the good points. The writer of 1990s crime classic "The Usual Suspects" went out and made a film called "The Way of the Gun".  When Way of the gun came out, it was quickly banished as one of these knockoff films and buried.

Somehow it didn't die, and slowly has gained a  cult movie reputation .   Its biggest weakness is that it tries to be too cute with the plot.   Otherwise it is a solid, if flawed movie. 

Our "Heroes" ready for the final fight...

The entire movie is really a reverse of what you normally see, and sometimes that really works, and sometimes it falls flat on its face.   It has protagonists who are petty criminals, and it turns out the villain, played by the always great Caan, is actually in most movies would be the hero, saving his daughter from a bad fate.   Also the casting Ryan Phillippe as a bad guy is also counter to what was expected.  

Some things are done very well, it still looks good 14 years later, as you can see by the screenshots.   Also some of the acting is very well done.   Caan is great as the villain, and Juliette Lewis does very well in moving like a women who is about to deliver a child.   Most of the acting talent is however the better end of the TV side of skill.   

One thing that this movie will be known for years is the excellent "Gun play", that for a movie at least, that most people use guns property, follow safety rules even in a firefight, and guns DO need to be reloaded.   And not just as the dramatic point, but all thought-out a gunfight.  

Reloading

Yep, more reloading

This movie does bring up a question of violence in movies.  As you are well aware, I normally dwell on the content of movies, perhaps it is the juxtaposition of my latter day saints religous views with the sex and violence of movies, and that I do enjoy violent movies.   This movie has a R rating, which it should, and it brings up a philosophical question.   What is more harmful, showing the actual violence realistically, with blood, people dying, and even innocent bystanders hurt and killed, or something like avengers where a entire city is basically crushed, with 10,000s of deaths, and not even a mention of this.   I have come to the point that I really think that Hollywoods CGI destruction fests that are PG-13 are much more harmful to society then a R rated film that shows the real cost of violence.   

The way of the gun is a violent movie.    There is no if and or buts about it, as people are shot, one person is tortured, and one moment of body horror as one of our So-anti-heroes that they are the villains does a Hollywood style dive into a dry fountain, and finds as he lands that the entire bottom is covered in beer bottles.  The torture sequence did cause me to knock it down a entire point as it was unneeded, and very violent.   

This movie uses guns a lot.   In fact, I would call it gun porn.  Every character with a speaking role will have a gun at some point in time except for the couple who unborn child is being ransomed.  However in it favor it is thought of as one of the few movies that shows how police, military, and other trained professionals will handle guns, with fingers not on the triggers unless firing, proper room clearing techniques, and as mentioned, reloading is part and parcel of the movie and its action sequences.  

   

Mexico....

Some of the set piece action sequences are very good.   The actual kidnapping sequence is okay,  but the low speed chase (that right, it is brave enough to do a low speed chase with a hostage) makes for a great action sequence.   The shootout to get to Robin is decently well done, and last but very not least, the ending firefight is one of the best shootouts in the movies, up with Heat and the other classics.

What you always wanted, to have a child in a Mexican brothel.

This movie is not nice to woman.   Not that it nice to men, but it has the visceral darkness that many 1990-2001 movies had.   The opening sequence is semi-famous, where a incredibly foul mouth woman played by a young Sarah Silverman who eggs on a fight to get punched, and the fact that Robin is in bad hands throughout the movie.   Just so you know in case your are sensitive to such things.

Another nice thing is that it shows that 15 million dollars is not a small amount of cash.  As in volume.   It takes a lot of space to have all that currency and the movie actually shows it.   Impressive non-hollywood when it normally would be a briefcase of cash.  

In the end, it is what it is.   A movie that is violent, from the "amoral 1990s", and at times talky.   It has some strong points, such as the great action sequences, and some major weak points, such as the characters who are shown to be dumb having very witty conversation.   The acting is uneven, with the couple who surrogate is kidnapped putting in sub-par performances, while Caan and Del Toro doing well.   In the end it falls under the magic 7.0 that I use as a good movie.   However those who like violent westerns and crime movies in the mold of 1970s movies like Thief or the works of Peckinpah or  Elmore Leonard might find it a good watch.

Some final images...