Review: The Gunman

Liam Neeson has a bit of an advantage in the Old Guy Action Hero Sweepstakes. He's a tall, imposing man. He doesn't need to take his off shirt to prove his strength, it's just kind of obvious. Sean Penn, on the other hand, is smallish (5' 8") and for most of his career, at least, he's been wiry. He's played tough guys before, but his strength seemed to come from a dangerous explosiveness, not because he could out bench-press you. Well, sigh…Sean Penn apparently decided that if he wanted to join the Action Club For (Old) Men he needed to bulk up—in a big way. In The Gunman, his biceps bulge with veins and his six pack is clearly defined. To my eyes, there's some cognitive dissonance here: His ugly-handsome mug is lined, proudly wearing all of its 54 years—and he's got the ripped body of a 30-year-old.

So yes, Sean Penn spends much of The Gunman shirtless—whether he's surfing, making sweet sweet love, or—in my favorite great moment in shirtlessness—bare-skinned under a bullet-proof vest. However, unless the thrill of seeing Sean Penn half naked excites you, there's not much else to recommend about Pierre Morel's muddled, plodding, and at times laughably far-fetched action thriller.

Penn plays Jim Terrier, an ex special forces guy, now working as a sniper on a mercenary assassination team in war-torn Congo. His beloved doctor girlfriend, Annie (Jasmine Trinca)—barely a character at all (though she looks fabulous standing in sun-dappled windows, wearing just one of Jim's shirts)—thinks he's a good guy, on a security detail. Meanwhile, Jim's point person Felix (Javier Bardem) is in love with Annie, and glowers jealously, Iago-style, whenever he sees her. When Jim is tasked with assassinating the Minister of Mines, he's told by Felix that he needs to disappear for a while, client's orders. "Take care of Annie," Jim says. Famous last words.

From there, nothing makes sense. Although Jim is a hardened and experienced gunman, something about this particular kill has sent him spiraling into a crisis of conscience. Yes, the assassination had consequences—it threw the region into further chaos—but why would this suddenly bother Jim now? Alas, the film has so little interest in Jim's motivations, it doesn't bother trying to explain them.

We flash forward eight years later and Jim is back in Central Africa, now on a relief mission to build wells—and hang ten, which is exactly the kind of hobby you'd expect a 50something guy racked with headaches and crippling guilt to take up. But when a bunch of assassins come around looking for him, he realizes that someone wants to permanently silence him—and he needs to figure out why. His search for answers sends him to London, where he meets up with his old pal Stanley (Ray Winstone), the kind of grizzled, whiskey-slamming tough guy this film specializes in. Later, he tracks down Felix in Barcelona and discovers his former cohort is married to—you guessed it—Annie, who spends about five minutes being angry at Jim for abandoning her before falling back into his arms. (Then again, how can you blame her? He was. . . shirtless!)

Now with Annie in tow, Jim's quest leads him to Gibraltar, where he runs up against slick Interpol agent Idris Elba (nearly stealing the film with his ineffable cool in one small scene) and then onto an improbable bullfight, featuring some very well-behaved bulls who charge bad guys at opportune times.

Now, a few words about those headaches. It is discovered early in the film that Jim has post-concussion syndrome, the same thing a lot of former NFL players suffer from. As a result of this condition, Jim gets headaches, blurred vision, nausea, and sometimes passes out. However, the condition never keeps him from driving fast, shooting with deadly precision, kicking ass in hand-to-hand combat, or making the aforementioned sweet, sweet love. So why exactly does Jim have this condition? I'm not entirely sure. To humanize him, I guess. But it doesn't work. Maybe if Penn and co. had worked a little harder on his character's interior instead of his exterior, we'd have a better film. But then again, we'd have a completely different one, too.