Review: The Gunman

The Gunman begins in 2006 in the stylishly sun-baked Democratic Republic of Congo. News reports inform us that this is the scene of the worst humanitarian crisis in the world. This is a country rife with poverty, violence, and political corruption. A civil war has broken out due to the assassination of the country's minister of mining, who had recently announced the cancellation and renegotiation of mining contracts with foreign companies.

The triggerman is Jim Terrier (Sean Penn), a former Special Forces soldier turned gun-for-hire who wants out of the game. Mission accomplished, he is forced to flee the embattled country but not before tasking colleague Felix (Javier Bardem) to look after his girlfriend Annie (Jasmine Trinca). Terrier would seem a good fit for Penn, whose résumé is littered with morally compromised and damaged men. When we next see Terrier, it is eight years hence, and he is back in the Congo, doing penance for past sins as an aid worker trying to bring clean drinking water to the area. There's still a touch of the rebellious in Terrier - he consistently breaks staff security protocol by surfing at the break of every dawn.

Terrier's past catches up with him when he's attacked by random gunmen shouting, "Where's the white man?" Shovels and machetes are wielded. Terrier naturally does away with the baddies, and soon he is tracking down his former cohorts to warn them that they may be in danger and also to try and find out who wants him dead and why. Terrier also discovers that Felix has more than fulfilled his promise to protect Annie. The two are now married and about to finalise the adoption of their first child.

The Gunman is based on a 1981 pulp novel by Frenchman Jean-Patrick Manchette, which Penn co-adapted with Don MacPherson and Pete Travis. With Pierre Morel aboard as director, all signs point to The Gunman being Penn's Taken. The 54-year-old is undoubtedly fit, putting his bulging biceps and rock hard abs on constant display and in constant danger of being knifed, pierced by bullets and, yes, even being gored by a bull. The double Oscar winner supplies his trademark intensity and soulfulness. Penn has too strong a presence not to be watchable, and yet this is a role that feels ill-suited even when he's hitting all the right notes.

Part of what made Taken such an effective film is that Morel and screenwriters Luc Besson and Robert Mark Kamen stripped the story to its essentials. Daughter is kidnapped, father hunts down the bad guys. At no point did the filmmakers lose sight of their main goal: watching Neeson execute his special set of skills. The Gunman doesn't quite know its objective. Is it an international political thriller? A love triangle with shades of Casablanca? Does Terrier want to save himself, his mates, the girl, the world, all of the above?

Morel, as per usual, does well with the chases, shootouts, and the final showdown. The film, however, takes far too long to get where it needs to go - the disinterest already calcifies by the time Terrier lands in London and we still have Barcelona and Gibraltar to go. Worst of all, The Gunman takes itself far too seriously which is precisely why Bardem's hilariously overripe performance should be well applauded. Ray Winstone and Idris Elba pop in to provide additional swagger and, in Elba's case, a thoroughly nonsensical monologue about treehouses.

Penn. Bardem. Elba. Winstone. All sexy beasts trapped in a fitfully effective actioner.

The Gunman

Directed by: Pierre Morel

Written by: Don MacPherson, Pete Travis, Sean Penn; based on Jean-Patrick Manchette's novel The Prone Gunman

Starring: Sean Penn, Javier Bardem, Idris Elba, Ray Winstone, Mark Rylance, Jasmine Trinca, Daniel Adegboyega