Cinemavenger

   The funniest, nastiest movie reviews anywhere.

The Gunman

If The Gunman doesn't convince you to kill yourself, you must be the happiest, most well-adjusted and/or oblivious motherfucker the world has ever known.   

After all, what chance does the average, not famous, not independently wealthy, non-Oscar winner have if Sean Penn - who checked off all those boxes more than 10 years ago - is so achingly empty and unfulfilled that he has to co-produce, co-write and star in the worst example of an ego-boosting vanity project since Bush Jr. invaded Iraq?

I mean, here's a guy people have been heaping praise on since he went back-to-back in 1982 and 1983 as stoner archetype Jeff Spicoli in Fast Times at Ridgemont High then as streetwise tough-teen Mick O'Brien trying to survive juvie in Bad Boys.  He's been married to Madonna - who you just know let him get freakier than Rick James in bed - then to the stunningly beautiful, talented and successful Robin Wright and is currently dating another sexually-adventurous and far-from-homely little lady by the name of Charlize Theron.

Even though he tied Madonna to a chair and beat her, dodged an attempted murder charge  for dangling a paparazzo off of a hotel balcony by breaking out of jail and fleeing via jetfoil and publicly defended Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez on numerous occasions, his public image is Teflon.

Penn should be eternal-three-way-perma-high happy, but instead he felt the need to make The Gunman, a fourth-rate, mopey, White-guilt-ridden, blatant ripoff of Liam Neeson's career-reinvigorating Taken franchise.  And no, I'm not being cynical about Penn's motivation.  He even got Taken director Pierre Morel to helm this Depends-filled, geri-action misfire. 

Excuse me while I blow my fucking brains out.

Penn, who goes shirtless no fewer than five different times in The Gunman to show off his 54-year-old hardbody, plays an ex-Special Forces assassin-for-hire who, for no apparent reason, suddenly grows a conscience and decides to dig wells in Africa as penance.  With equally little reason, one of his past employers decides to take him out, so Penn country-hops around Europe trying to save his worthless neck.  Oh, and reunite with his old flame who is now married to Javier "I Was Really Good In No Country for Old Men But Piss All That Away Playing A Community-Theatre-Level Drunk Here" Bardem.

And then there's a shootout at a bullfight.  Of course.

Fuck, fuck, fuckity-fuck.

March 22, 2015