MOVIE REVIEW - The Gunman

Sean Penn leads a real nice cast in the new action movie, The Gunman.  Too bad this really stinks.

Can I ask a question?  What is going on here?  What on Earth is going on in this muddled mess of a movie?  If you choose to go, you may ask yourself the exact same questions.  This is a movie that attempts to show the ramifications of The West, or private companies sticking their nose in the business of third world countries for their natural resources.  But it doesn't work.  This is just about laughable.

Sad part is, this has a real nice cast of Penn, Javier Bardem, Roy Whinstone, and Idris Elba.  Too bad Elba is in this movie for about 4 minutes, and Bardem about 15.  Penn looks tired, and past his prime.  Thank goodness for the wonderful supporting actor, Whinstone.  But he's hardly in this either.  So who is in this? Penn, for the whole agonizing 2 hours this thing that drags on like the sled the draft horses pull at the Wayne County Fair.

This is incredibly hard to follow for a few reasons. There is an assassination in The Congo 8 years ago killing the person in charge of the nations mineral rights.   The trigger is pulled by a gunman (Penn) who is working for, well they don't really make it clear who he is working for.  The country then plunges into chaos as a result of the civil war that breaks out.  Penn has to leave the country, and starts a new life as a humanitarian.

Flash forward 8 years, and someone is now trying to kill all that were involved in the assassination. Who? We don't know exactly.  And how is this all coming together? Well, it doesn't. This simply does not work.  It's boring, it's sleepy, it's agonizingly long, and this entire enterprise is just flat out a really bad idea.  Being honest, it was hard to stay awake for all of this.  Then for good measure, after trudging through this septic quagmire for 2 hours, we get a ridiculous and laughable climax. 

This movie, for all of the good people in it, can't get out of its own way.  It's over cast, it's poorly thought out, and is just not A-list actor worthy.  This story, is a straight to streaming movie at best.  Instead, as bad as this is it ends up being straight to steaming  movie, if you know what I mean.

The Gunman.  Stay home and play canasta.