Entertainment

Film Review: ‘The Gunman’

Published

9 years ago

March 27, 2015

Oakland Post

Sean Penn and Idris Elba in the international thriller “The Gunman.” (Courtesy Photo)

By Dwight Brown
NNPA Film Critic

Sean Penn takes a page out of the Liam Neeson book of machismo in this sterile international thriller about a Special Forces soldier-turned-assassin who commits a crime he can’t live with. There’s one key difference between the two actors’ approach to action films: Neeson’s have humane qualities. Penn, as a deadeye killer named Jim Terrier, is not all that lovable. Go figure.

Somewhere in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, under the guise of an innocent contractor, Terrier is actually in cahoots with some devious people who are there to exploit the land for precious stones. When a government official, the Minister of Mining, gets in the way, he is done in. Terrier goes on the lam, leaving behind his foreign aid worker girlfriend Annie (Jasmine Trinca) and a sneaky friend named Felix (Javier Bardem).

Eight years later, Terrier has changed his ways and is doing humanitarian work in Africa when thugs come hunting for him. That event drags him back to his old life, as he heads to London, Barcelona and Gibraltar to dig up old chums and find out who is trying to kill him. By the way, Felix has married Annie, and any references to the fox guarding the chicken coop are warranted.

Pierre Morel, the director of the original Neeson-starring Taken film, seems the perfect mentor for Penn, as the way-too-sober actor attempts to morph into an ultra tough guy. It takes a while for Penn’s interpretation of Terrier to gel, and when it does we find him cold, detached, reeling from head trauma like a retired football player and not sympathetic. He shoots to kill, is an expert martial arts guy and his boxing skills are on point. Yet, his antics never excite you. Yes, Penn is an Oscar-caliber actor, but this is not his best performance. However, it must be duly noted, that at age 54 he is in the best shape of his life. Six-pack abs, cut shoulders, biceps the size of footballs and he is lean. Either he buffed up for the role, or this is the way he keeps a girlfriend like Charlize Theron.

The script, credited to Don MacPherson, Pete Travis and Penn, is based on a 1981 novel by Jean-Patrick Manchette. It’s a serviceable story with the appropriate amount of bad guys, whodunits, plot twists, bombs bursting, guns flaring, etc. None of the suspense, thrills or action matches the sheer magic of the Jason Bourne movies, or the emotionally grounded Taken franchise. There’s enough going on to keep the movie afloat for 115 minutes. You won’t be bored. And when things do slow down a bit, Morel and cinematographer Flavio Martínez Labiano (director of photography: second unit Exodus: Gods and Kings) deliver some evocative shots of the dusty Congo, Spanish farmland or an artsy bullfight.

The Annie character is a weak, sexy, passive woman and Italian actress Jasmine Trinca (Saint Laurent) fails to lift the character off the page. This is a part that should have gone to Marion Coltillard; she would have known how to portray the angst of a woman left behind. Javier Bardem is tepid and crazed as Felix, but not impressive. British actor Ray Winstone as one of Terrier’s confidants is fine. Idris Elba, in a brief appearance as an Interpol agent, shows more depth and command of the screen than all the other actors combined. In one scene he introduces himself to Terrier on a park bench. It’s a short scene and the best acting in the entire movie.

The Gunman doesn’t shoot blanks, but it is never fully loaded.

Visit NNPA Film Critic Dwight Brown at DwightBrownInk.com.

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Entertainment

O.J. Simpson, 76, Dies of Prostate Cancer

Orenthal James (O.J.) Simpson, who rose to fame as a college football player who went on to the NFL and parlayed his talents in acting and sportscasting, succumbed to prostate cancer on April 10, his family announced.

Published

1 day ago

April 17, 2024

Oakland Post

Orenthal James (O.J.) Simpson. Wikipedia photo

By Post Staff

Born and raised in San Francisco, the Galileo High School graduate was recruited by the University of Southern California after he was on a winning Junior College All-American team.

At USC, he gained wide acclaim as a running back leading to him becoming the No. 1 pick in the AFL-NFL draft in 1969 and joining the Buffalo Bills, where he had demanded – and received — the largest contract in professional sports history: $650,000 over five years. In 1978, the Bills traded Simpson to his hometown team, the San Francisco 49ers, retiring from the game in 1979.

Simpson’s acting career had begun before his pro football career with small parts in 1960s TV (“Dragnet”) before “Roots” and film (“The Klansman,” “The Towering Inferno,” Capricorn One”).

He was also a commentator for “Monday Night Football,” and “The NFL on NBC,” and in the mid-1970s Simpson’s good looks and amiability made him, according to People magazine, “the first b\Black athlete to become a bona fide lovable media superstar.”

The Hertz rent-a-car commercials raised his recognition factor while raising Hertz’s profit by than 50%, making him critical to the company’s bottom line.

It could be said that even more than his success as a football star, the commercials of his running through airports endeared him to the Black community at a time when it was still unusual for a Black person to represent a national, mainstream company.

He remained on Hertz team into the 1990s while also getting income endorsing Pioneer Chicken, Honey Baked Ham and Calistoga water company products and running O.J. Simpson Enterprises, which owned hotels and restaurants.

He married childhood sweetheart Marguerite Whitley when he was 19 and became the father of three children. Before he divorced in 1979, he met waitress and beauty queen Nicole Brown, who he would marry in 1985. A stormy relationship before, during and after their marriage ended, it would lead to a highway car chase as police sought to arrest Simpson for the murder by stabbing of Brown and her friend Ron Goldman in 1994.

The pursuit, arrest, and trial of Simpson were among the most widely publicized events in American history, Wikipedia reported.

Characterized as the “Trial of the Century,” he was acquitted by a jury in 1995 but found liable in the amount of $33 million in a civil action filed by the victims’ families three years later.

Simpson would be ensnared in the criminal justice system 12 years later when he was arrested after forcing his way into a Las Vegas hotel room to recover sports memorabilia he believed belonged to him.

In 2008, he received a sentence of 33 years and was paroled nine years later in 2017.

When his death was announced, Simpson’s accomplishments and downfalls were acknowledged.

Sports analyst Christine Brennan said: “… Even if you didn’t love football, you knew O.J. because of his ability to transcend sports and of course become the businessman and the pitchman that he was.

“And then the trial, and the civil trial, the civil case he lost, and the fall from grace that was extraordinary and well-deserved, absolutely self-induced, and a man that would never be seen the same again,” she added.

“OJ Simpson played an important role in exposing the racial divisions in America,” attorney Alan Dershowitz, an adviser on Simpson’s legal “dream team” told the Associated Press by telephone. “His trial also exposed police corruption among some officials in the Los Angeles Police Department. He will leave a mixed legacy. Great athlete. Many people think he was guilty. Some think he was innocent.”

“Cookie and I are praying for O.J. Simpson’s children … and his grandchildren following his passing. I know this is a difficult time,” Magic Johnson said on X.

“I feel that the system failed Nicole Brown Simpson and failed battered women everywhere,” attorney Gloria Allred, who once represented Nicole’s family, told ABC News. “I don’t mourn for O.J. Simpson. I do mourn for Nicole Brown Simpson and her family, and they should be remembered.”

Simpson was diagnosed with prostate cancer about a year ago and was undergoing chemotherapy treatment, according to Pro Football Hall of Fame President Jim Porter. He died in his Las Vegas, Nevada, home with his family at his side.

He is survived by four children: Arnelle and Jason from his first marriage and Sydney and Justin from his second marriage. He was predeceased son, Aaren, who drowned in a family swimming pool in 1979.

Sources for this report include Wikipedia, ABC News, Associated Press, and X.