‘Gunman’ misses the target
Print Edition
AT one point in “The Gunman,” the new Sean Penn geopolitical thriller, our star goes surfing. It’s supposed to show he has a reckless side, since he’s surfing in unsafe territory, but it seems to have a larger, much more obvious purpose: To show us that Penn, who co-wrote and co-produced the film, at 54, is ripped.
Despite the high-minded issues ostensibly at play here — Western commercial exploitation of Africa, guilt and penance, love and abandonment — the goal is pretty much the same as in “Taken,” the 2008 thriller that transformed Liam Neeson into a border-hopping, middle-aged action star.
“The Gunman” makes us watch Penn’s muscles ripple as he kicks butt in a variety of picturesque locales.
It begins in 2006 in the Congo, where mercenary Jim Terrier (Penn), an ex-special forces man working ostensibly in security, is up to something dodgy with his band of European former military types, who include Felix (Javier Bardem) and Cox (Mark Rylance).
One morning Jim says goodbye to girlfriend Annie (Jasmine Trinca). She thinks he’ll be picking her up later at the health clinic where she works. He says he hopes he won’t be working late. We know from Penn’s face that it might be a long while indeed before he returns.
That same night, as it happens, Jim’s task is to assassinate the country’s mining minister on behalf of his shadowy foreign bosses. His mission accomplished, Jim needs to leave, and fast. We don’t see him again for eight years.
After some time in Europe, he’s back in Africa, trying to purge his sins with humanitarian work digging wells. But someone’s out to kill him. After an attack at his work site sees him dispatching a bunch of machine-gun toting killers, Jim flees once more, in a desperate fight to find his killers before they find him.
In London, he tracks down his old friend Stanley (Ray Winstone). He also stops to see Cox, who informs him others in their group have died and warns: “Keep your eyes open, my friend.”
Will Jim Terrier survive? And will Penn’s new action-hero persona survive and flourish? Not clear.
Penn doesn’t wear the aging action hero mantle as comfortably as Neeson. Known for his famous intensity, more character and more story would have made for a better film.
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