Friday, June 1, 2007

The Way of the Gun

Note to reader: this film does not warrant this long of a review, but when I sat down to write it, I discovered I had a lot to say about it. So, if you give up midway through, I understand.



Rewatching The Way of the Gun after a two or three year break in between allowed me to view the film with a fresh perspective. It is not as strong of a film as I originally thought, but I still really like the film. The flaws are more glaring now, but strengths are clearer as well.

The Way of the Gun is the directoral debut of The Usual Suspects Oscar-winning screenwriter Christopher McQuarrie. It flopped and McQuarrie hasn't really worked much since. That's a shame because he shows a lot of promise with this movie. His skills as a screenwriter are already recognized (you know, with that gold guy statue), and they are on display here. Like The Usual Suspects, there are lots of creative lines that are ripe for quoting. Unlike The Usual Suspects, they do not always work within the context of the movie. When the lines do work, they're great. When they don't work, they are a bump out of the reality of the film. The film works so hard to force the crime movie genre dialogue that it sometimes shows its strained effort rather than playing seamlessly (i.e. - "I promise you a day of reckoning that you won't live long enough to never forget."). But there are some wonderful spots of dialogue that play to McQuarrie's strengths, particularly a scene with Benicio Del Toro's kidnapper and James Caan's "bagman" sharing a cup of coffee and discussing the sorry state of the common criminal ("These days, they want to be criminals more than they want to commit crime."). Another strong scene, definitely Phillippe's best scene in the film, is a conversation with Del Toro vaguely about conscience and the wages of sin.

But there are those awkward scenes as well. I'll chalk up much of this awkwardness to some performances. Taye Diggs doesn't really handle gritty dialogue well. He rings false as an always professional, ruthless bodyguard. He seems miscast. I'll admit, the guy is charismatic, but any talent he may have is absent in the role.

McQuarrie wants to write a gritty movie, and he mostly succeeds. Everybody in the film has questionable morals, with most of the characters playing either emotionally numb or emotionally conflicted low-lifes in either nice suits and dress shirts or thrift store shirts and nine dollar hair cuts. While this could have made it very difficult to root for anyone, McQuarrie writes his two main characters complexly enough to make me care.

The locales, especially when the setting moves to Mexico, also lend their hands to the style. A dirty brothel and shoddy motel and bar can't help but set the tone for the shady dealings that take place.

McQuarrie is also a strong plotter (if that's a word). The plot is complicated with interesting conflicts both personal and professionally amongst the characters. The conflicts created actually make the plot seem much more complicated than it really is, but that isn't as bad thing. It's really a basic kidnapping movie, but one set up very well.

The cinematography also shows off a interesting eye for mise en cine. There's some frontality, lighting choices, and framing that really holds the action well. Some of the brief quiet, still moments really stood out to me such as Phillippe and the very pregnant Juliette Lewis sharing a snadwich in a stolen van, Lewis riding an elevator with her bodyguards, and Del Toro mulling over the weight of the situation during a c-section happening right next him.

The strength of this movie is in part the plotting and characterizations, but largely the performances of two of its actors. Benicio Del Toro is great, playing a older, wiser, more experienced criminal somewhat mentoring his friend, "associate," and fellow criminal played by Ryan Phillippe. He almost always dominates his scenes with Phillippe even though his character is much more reserved, smooth, and quiet. No one in the film handles the dialogue better than Del Toro. It rolls off his tongue naturally, fortifying his low-life as a fully-realized performance.

This film is also notable because it features a wonderful performance by James Caan, who since this film was released in 2000, has been stuck in TV land in Las Vegas, which is, as one would imagine, lackluster. He plays with and against type, playing his usual tough guy persona, but with the twist that it's a aged tough guy whose old fashioned means of operation cast him in a bad light when two young, modern bodyguards convince their employer he is past his prime. The role might mirror his own career when older actors known for their out of date personas have to prove themselves as relevant. And he does. He's still a tough guy with many of the film's best scenes. It's fun to see Caan act again. He's pretty good at it.

Phillippe is the other lead, and his character adds moral conviction to the mix. His criminal is an interesting character, preaching the mission statement of his partnership in a voice over in the beginning, though his character slowly sheds his certainty of the necessity of their livelihood. He gets a nice speech I mentioned earlier in this review that stands out, but quite a bit of his performance is incredibly forced. I like Phillippe, and he certainly has improved as an actor (Breach, Crash), but I wonder how much better this film could have been with a different actor like Mark Ruffalo or Edward Norton, though their ages do not fit the part.

The theme of the film is making amends for your sins. It isn’t hit over the head of the viewer, and I actually had to do some thinking about what the theme was. But it was there the whole time in plain sight. These are bad people and their sins are many, but they are granted the chance to do something right. The question raised is: does one thing done right fix all that was done wrong.? And the film’s answer is: don’t expect anything in the way of redemption.

***

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Wow, this review is quite wordy but does provide great incite. I very much agree with you on all points other than Taye Diggs performance. Not that my simple review adds anything additional about the movie other than another checkmark...here it is: The Way of the Gun