Film Review: The Way of the Gun (2000)

Christopher McQuarrie is, mainly thanks to his work on Mission: Impossible film series, considered to be one of the more successful writers and directors in Hollywood. But, his career, that had looked so promising after his Oscar-awarded script for The Usual Suspects, also had long period when it was going nowhere. Some might point to failure of his 2000 action thriller The Way of the Gun as the reason for that.

The main characters are Parker (played by Ryan Philippe) and Longbaugh (played by Benicio del Toro), two petty criminals who, among other things, make ends meet by selling their blood and sperm to specialised clinic. There they hear about Robin (played by Juliette Lewis), girl who is going to serve as surrogate mother for local tycoon Hale Chidduk (played by Scott Wilson) and his sterile wife Francesca (played by Kristin Lehmann). Parker and Longbaugh immediately make plan to abduct the girl and ask hefty ransom from Chidduk. They abduct Robin despite presence of armed bodyguards, not knowing that Chidduk actually works as money launderer for the mob and can’t afford the ransom. While Parker and Longbaufh try to hide in Mexico, Chidduk sends Sarno (played by James Caan), his old acquaintance who is specialised for “clean up” in such inconvenient situations.

Most of American critics were either very cold towards The Way of the Gun or very disappointed. The reason might be in high expectations based on The Usual Suspects not being met and another might be in bizarre plot that suggests another Tarantinoesque black comedy about crime going very wrong. McQuarrie, on the other hand, approached characters and plot with utmost seriousness and tried to make his film as realistic as possible. In doing so, he made two main characters, which were supposed to be protagonist, completely amoral and hard for audience to empathise with. The rest of characters aren’t much better, although they are made interesting by very diverse cast. The best works belongs to veteran James Caan as “cleaner”, while Benicio del Toro is effective as more silent among two abductors. Juliette Lewis, who, by playing pregnant woman, was supposed to make her character a moral anchor, fails in her mission.

The main reason why The Way of the Gun looks disappointing is in large amounts of explicit and often unpleasant violence. McQuarrie tries, and to a degree succceds, in paying homage to past giants of action cinema like Sergio Leone and Sam Peckinpah, so The Way of the Gun isn’t complete waste of time and can be quite entertaining for cinephiles. Despite couple of scenes with characters moralising and miscasting of Ryan Philippe as hardened criminal, this film is more than passable and its relative obscurity is unjustified.

RATING: 5/10 (++)

Blog in Croatian https://draxblog.com
Blog in English https://draxreview.wordpress.com/
Leofinance blog https://leofinance.io/@drax.leo

Unstoppable Domains: https://unstoppabledomains.com/?ref=3fc23fc42c1b417
Hiveonboard: https://hiveonboard.com?ref=drax y
Bitcoin Lightning HIVE donations: https://v4v.app/v1/lnurlp/qrcode/drax
Rising Star game: https://www.risingstargame.com?referrer=drax
1Inch: https://1inch.exchange/#/r/0x83823d8CCB74F828148258BB4457642124b1328e

BTC donations: 1EWxiMiP6iiG9rger3NuUSd6HByaxQWafG
ETH donations: 0xB305F144323b99e6f8b1d66f5D7DE78B498C32A7