The Gunman

A thoroughbred Hollywood action flick with a good cast, exotic enough and formally classy, and with a hero that’s impossible not to root for. But at the same time, everything feels so overly ambitious, super-cleverly conspiratorial and wannabe bold that it ended up irritating rather than entertaining me. Penn is OK, but Bardem is miscast in the worst role of his career so far, while Idris Elba should be compensated by the filmmakers for wasting his precious talent. The script is also out of place, unfortunately. It pretends to be an exotic B-movie within the thematic framework of Three Days of the Condor, but with secondary motifs that are uninteresting, a tone-deaf and a romantic storyline that doesn’t work very well, while the identity of the villain will be clear to any dork around the 20th minute. Everything is saved by the expertly executed and exciting action sequences that make us feel, at least at times, in really expensive company... 55% (11/01/2016)

Something between Payback and Blood Diamond. There's the same politics and disputes over a country's mineral wealth, as well as a love triangle that doesn't quite work and is rather secondary. Maybe it's not as romantic or grand, but I don't expect any wilderness from Pierre Morel, rather a story that has pace and doesn't bother with unnecessary digressions that would hinder quality action – and that's exactly what I got. I haven't seen Sean Penn this loaded before, and it's quite nice, with dynamic, proper and well edited action and an excellent final fight. I wouldn't hesitate to say it's a solid addition to the genre. Definitely nothing new what do you really expect from Morel? (21/03/2015)

What made Sean Penn switch from Oscar-worthy performances and directing Into the Wild to the character of an action hero in a coproduction with Joel Silver? A job another former character actor, Liam Neeson, didn’t dream of and now has three of them lined up every year? Gunman doesn’t want to be modernly stylish; it wants to be dirty and dark, with an ambiguously clean protagonist. I personally like this take and have no problem with Penn’s character. On the contrary, it’s the only thing that makes the movie interesting and different from its genre siblings, as it doesn’t excel in any other respect. The script seems to have been written twenty years ago, at the times of Harrison Ford’s Jack Ryan (to which it would have been a “dark alternative”). And mainly it dawdles with a romantic storyline no one really cares about. (26/03/2015)

As long as I tried to connect Rambo-like amicable repentance, financial tricks, empty love triangles, and Jim's own past, The Gunman held my attention with one hand and cut off branches with more and more characters with the other. But after leaving the cinema, the impressions of the action disintegrate into mere contemplation of how Sean Penn can pump up muscles like this after fifty and why Idris Elba appeared only when the film was almost ending. Unfortunately, Pierre Morel is also a man worth shooting, who proves that 96 Hours was the peak of his career, after which he is merely going downhill. (18/03/2015)

In the genre of action thrillers, The Gunman certainly holds its ground, offering quite a gripping spectacle. Sean Penn, in the lead role, proves once again that he is rightfully among the best American actors. It doesn't concern his acting qualities, but I must mention that I wondered where the hell he got those perfectly sculpted muscles in his old age. Under the impression of recent films I've seen, however, I must deduct one star from my original plan. After all, this drama stands and falls with one single character, embodied by Sean Penn. (65%) (12/05/2020)