Way of the Gun

WAY OF THE GUN (2000)

I've seen a lot of movies in the last week, one of which was this little film--pretty much a failure by any definition of the term. A box-office dud that Artisan marketed like a wet turd and one of the few recent DVDs you can frequently pick up for less than ten bucks; Way of the Gun is also an uneven movie with too much on its mind and too many axes to grind. It fails to stay true to its gritty esthetic and its anti-criminal crime message, while its first several shoot-outs somehow manage to seem unreal while scrupulously striving for reality. Like its two loser antiheroes, the Way of the Gun is a mess, a wreck, a dud--and I still can't get it out of my head.

Beautfiul Losers: Parker and Longbaugh Part of this is the script by writer/director Christopher McQuarrie which never quite manages to live up to its Chinatown-meets-The-Wild-Bunch-as-written-by-Jim-Thompson ambitions (with some interesting Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid references), but stings with whipcrack dialogue. "A plan is just a list of things that don't happen," Ryan Phillipe's Parker says shortly before the end of the movie after everything has gone south (both metaphorically and literally). Parker and Del Toro's Longbaugh are misfits who, like real criminals, are simultaneously startingly efficient and incredibly reckless and clumsy; overhearing the plight of surrogate mother carrying the child of a billionaire, their kidnapping of her seems as spontaneous and as quixotic as the decision. "Who's the brains of this operation?" bagman Joe Sarno asks Longbaugh when they first meet. "Tell ya the truth," Longbaugh replies, "I don't think this is a brains kind of operation." And earlier than that, an exchange between Parker and Longbaugh is the theme upon which the movie hinges. "You shouldn't have faith in people," Longbaugh says to Parker. "You have to if you're going to be a kidnapper," Parker replies.

And part of this is also the characters of Parker and Longbaugh, who are nasty, scruffy losers whose unspoken understanding and faith in each other make them something like heroes. McQuarrie wants to have it both ways, and show us that criminals are really bad people, and yet also make us feel for their plight. Not surprisingly, we end up somewhere in the middle with the ultra-downer ending (stopping short of a full Chinatown, mind you) providing neither catharsis nor comfort. However, Parker and Longbaugh are sort of like a sociopathic Laurel & Hardy (and no, that doesn't make them the Three Stooges, dammit), an effect that comes from the skill and chemistry of Del Toro and Phillipe. Phillipe is quite good here, and his Jersey accent gives his brief bits of voiceover a matter-of-fact snap. But, unsurprisingly, it's Del Toro who steals the show here. His deadpan face and his eyes glittering with cynical humor (if there was ever a guy to play Buster Keaton in a biopic, it's Del Toro) quietly move Longbaugh from the awesomingly capable to the mythically resonant. Together, the two characters are truly great.

Which makes McQuarrie's decision to craft the rest of the movie around the situation into which Parker and Longbaugh have Everyone else from Way ofthe Gun dealt themselves disappointing, although understandable. Revelation after revelation is revealed about the relationship between Juliette Lewis's character and the couple for whom she's carrying--the whole thing circling wider to encompass the delivering doctor, the bagman, the bodyguards, the wife. Everyone ends up having an angle to play, and their attempts to play it gives the whole movie a baroque complexity that is only intermittently effective. It leads to some great scenes, particularly with Geoffrey Lewis (Juliette's father in real life but not in the movie) as Abner, Sarno's helper, who we first encounter preparing to blow his brains out while listening to country-western music (his final scene with James Caan is also wonderful). And there's some performances that range from very good (Nicky Katt and Taye Diggs) to excellent (Caan's work is terrific, as is Dylan Kussman as Dr. Painter) but McQuarrie is so careful not to wear his heart on the sleeve it disappears for most of the movie. By the time it reappears, it's basically too late.

There's also a pointless opening scene with an excellent cameo by Sarah Silverman, and an interview sequence at a sperm donor clinic that shouldn't be missed. (The score is also quite good). Way of the Gun is a beautiful loser--a failure of a film with dozens of little touches and bits of brilliance. If you like the uneven auteur movies of early 70's America, you'll like a lot of Way of the Gun. I did, and may end up springing for one of those cheap DVDs if I'm not careful.

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