Penn is disarmed by film’s thin plot
‘The Gunman’ misfires, but it’s not star’s fault
It stands to reason that if someone tries recasting Sean Penn as a middleaged action hero — a la Liam Neeson — they should do it with a smart film. Penn isn’t the type to throw around one-liners before his character blows someone through a wall.
Unfortunately, “The Gunman” isn’t as smart as it needs to be, which is a missed opportunity. Casting Penn as an aging professional killer whose past comes back to bite him seems an idea that is past due. Penn hasn’t headlined an action thriller before, and the thought of him applying his skills and intensity to such a role is an exciting one. But concepts and results sometimes don’t wind up on the same page.
The fault isn’t Penn’s as much as it is a weak plot and the tendency of director Pierre Morel (“Taken”) to allow the film to fall back on subplots exhausted by
other spy thrillers. Penn does his job, for the most part. His lined face, ripped physique and leathery skin reveal a dangerous professional who’s been to hell and back. This is no smooth-faced, handsome Matt Damon playing Jason Bourne. Penn also has enough skill to give his character some depth and humor and us some reasons to like him.
So “The Gunman” is enjoyable at times. But too many problems keep it from being a very good film.
Penn is retired assassin James Terrier, dealing with a world that mixes corporate motivations with political interests. It’s refreshing in its complexity, especially when — like in the real world — we’re not quite sure who at the top is doing what to whom. And setting much of the movie in a brutal environment of the Congo provides a necessary grittiness.
Posing as aid workers, Terrier and Felix (Javier Bardem) are part of a mercenary team that pulls off a world-stunning political assassination for a shadow employer. Because Terrier is chosen to take the shot, he must immediately flee the country, leaving behind his lover, the almost too-perfect humanitarian doctor Annie (Jasmine Trinca).
Fast forward eight years, and Terrier is back in Africa, though now apparently a real aid worker. When someone tries to kill him, he goes to Europe and tracks down some of his old mercenary buddies to get to the bottom of it.
Here’s where the film develops its warts. Since Terrier asks Felix to take care of Annie, we have to endure watching a smart, passionate woman who needs baby-sitting and falls in love with whichever man pays most attention to her. She mostly exists to give the men someone to rescue, and she remains as unquestioning as an unknowing child while being ripped away from her life.
The action scenes are mostly well done, paced so the audience can appreciate what happens, unlike so many other films in the genre that move as fast as possible because they can. Even having the big showdown during a bullfight in Spain — which at first seems clichéd and obvious — works pretty well.
But Bardem’s character is a letdown. Too much of what Felix does happens too easily, from his relationship with Annie to his rise as a businessman, despite being a drunk. Instead of playing a complicated and worthy foe for Terrier, Felix comes off like a dopey, passive-aggressive kid.
“The Gunman” starts well, presenting an opportunity for a conversation or two about how governments and corporations manipulate Third World countries. But it devolves into a mess of worn plot lines. If Morel wanted to give Penn’s career new life as a world-weary action hero, he missed his target.