The Gunman

Plot synopsis:
Jim Terrier (Sean Penn) is a former special forces soldier who, in his 50s, has become a black-ops mercenary. He is part of a team deployed by a corporation in the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2006, under the cover of providing security to local projects. He falls in love with Annie (Jasmine Trinca), a fellow expat working as an NGO doctor in a local hospital. During this period, even though civil war has wreaked havoc on the country, large multinational mining companies continue to profit from the country's mining industry. After the Minister of Mining announces his plans to declare contracts with the mining companies unjust and renegotiate the terms, the mining companies hire Terrier's team to assassinate the Minister, to ensure their access to the rich mineral resources. Terrier delivers the fatal shot from a sniper rifle and flees from Africa, leaving Annie behind. After that, Terrier retires from his mercenary career.
Eight years later he returns to DRC as a charity worker to build wells. One day he is brutally assaulted by a local hit squad, but he manages to kill them all. While searching the attackers' bodies, he finds signs that the attack was not random and that he was the target. Scared and suspicious, he flees to London to meet an ex-mercenary colleague, who reveals that Cox, their ex-boss in the Congo assassination, has formed a large international security firm offering its services to major clients, such as the Pentagon. The firm's head wants to eliminate all of the former members of the assassination squad, as revelations of their former activities could hinder the development of the new firm, so the firm's hit teams chase Terrier around the clock, meanwhile killing his friends and kidnapping Annie.
However, Terrier still keeps highly compromising materials that can reveal Cox's role in the Congo assassination and uses it to lure Cox and his team to a bullfight in Spain, threatening to expose their complicity unless they trade Annie for the evidence. Unknown to them, Terrier makes a deal with Interpol to deliver them and provide evidence to aid their ongoing investigation. Despite battling severe head trauma suffered from his violent past, Terrier defeats the mercenaries sent to kill him. As he struggles to help Annie escape to safety, Cox discovers them. Terrier is wounded but manages to shoot Cox, who is then gored by a loose bull. Interpol arrive and take Terrier into custody, though Agent Barnes promises to do what he can to help Terrier avoid doing more jail time than necessary.
The film ends with Terrier, recovered and released from prison, reuniting with Annie in the DRC.

Tags: revenge, murder, violence, flashback

Review:
If you are looking for a fairly low commitment to a 'smart' action movie, then you can do worse.In 2006, Terrier (Penn) works for a global corporation (that might as well be called Umbrella Corporation) and is asked to kill a high ranking diplomat.
Unfortunately, Elba who gets second billing is in the movie for 2 scenes total and less than 3 minutes screen time, a role that has so little to it that I might as well have played the character.
To my way of thinking, his best performance up until this movie was as Bradford Whitewood, Jr. in "At Close Range," but right now, after just having watched The Gunman, I've got to say, "Wow..." I never thought of Sean Penn as any sort of "action" star and I certainly never imagined him doing a film like this.
While the action has sharpness to it, the thriller aspect doesn't entirely work.'The Gunman' Synopsis: A sniper on a mercenary assassination team, kills the minister of mines of the Congo.
Sean Penn's physique in the film is impressive and we are constantly reminded how much the actor got in shape for the role considering how much screen time his giant biceps earn.
Oh what a waste of good film..The Gunman is not the movie I expected it to be, and despite the assembled cast of actors, the potential is lost to fast production.
He simply doesn't come across as a very likable guy, and certainly not someone we can root for.Based on the novel of Jean-Patrick Manchette, the movie starts out in the Democratic Republic of Congo where Penn is a mercenary disguised as part of a mining security detail.
A sure sign of a weak script is a film that is bookended by "newscasts" to explain both what is going to happen as well as what just happened.Pierre Morel directed the first Taken movie, and his cast is stellar: Sean Penn, Javier Bardem, Idris Elba, Ray Winstone, and Mark Rylance.
Hit man Jim Terrier (Sean Penn) assassinates the Congo's Minister of Mines, leaves the country for 8-years, comes back to dig wells for the people and then he's targeted.
I don't think I ever saw Sean Penn do an action movie.Not sure if he's at that point in his career were he does not care or he just feels he can't be a well diverse actor without having this on his resume.Either way he does a good performance as one, and was impressively built but not overdone for the role.The movie does go over some political satire with his character playing a Metaphor of the guilt we all should all feel about our own involvement in what's going on in the Congo.Guess he felt this will be a better way to spread his word to the masses.
Since then he wobbled a bit with FROM Paris WITH LOVE with its silly, jokey storyline, but he's back on form with this deadly serious international thriller that has much in common with the modern-day likes of the Swedish HAMILTON films.The story is clichéd and predictable but the film delivers more than adequate thrills and some great action sequences.
And Javier Bardem has a lot of fun with the role, though at times his acting is more theatrical, and seems like it should be in a different movie.
At first I hated a certain plot point concerning a certain character's head trauma, but it ended up making for a more interesting movie as it helped make a character less invincible and also has a vital affect on the story.The action is well done, with it being pretty easy to follow and nice to look at.
Egotistical Penn all he does during the movie is show off......how he beats up a whole group of African mercenaries that wanted to kill him (a yeah right....important subject) .......and that is what the movie is about.....he beats up everybody that crosses his path.....is a "Rocky/Rambo" wannabe......to late to jump in that van wagon.....he shows off his steroids like built arms.....he even shows himself surfing (lame).....at the end he even gets the girl (that he couldn't in real life)....it seems like a corny commercial to sell a worn product (himself)....very sad!.....he is almost sixty.....and think he is going to fool anybody......big mistake....worst movie.....and insult to the movie aficionado.....even a regular "Joe", can't be that gullible......
I miss the old Sean Penn who took roles displaying his raw talent over these emotionally enriched character development stories which quite frankly come off as emotionally supercharged in my book.The film has some good shootout sequences and Javier Bardem is a joy to watch but the story just isn't there for any kind of connection to the rest of the characters, I'm kind of surprised this emo-fest wasn't the brainchild of Clint Eastwood to begin with.What action sequences there are well done but there are far too few for a movie called "The Gunman"..
Worst of all, the film feels so much like a cut and paste effort to please studio executives with another beginning-of-the-year action release, made up of odds and ends men in suits think we'd like to see over what we'd actually like to see, that it's as if we're watching a film nobody asked for.One of the few positives of "The Gunman" is that it gives Liam Neeson time to take a hot bath and lather his entire body with Icy Hot. Sean Penn, the latest candidate in this exhausting line of aging action heroes proving they can keep up with guys half their age, steps up to the plate here, playing Jim Terrier, an ex-soldier living in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Following the event, we pick up eight years later where Jim's wife (Jasmine Trinca) is now his ex-wife, married to his former coworker Felix (Javier Bardem in perhaps his weakest role yet), his health is greatly deteriorating with chronic headaches and fainting, and goons out to make him repay for his assassination in the Congo.Penn is almost always the center of attention in "The Gunman," which is fine, as Penn has proved through diverse roles he's capable of carrying a movie, but the talent on display here is really cut short and given stupid, half-baked roles to fill.
Bardem is laughable, as he spends some of his desperately little screen time drugged out of his mind, Idris Elba shows up just when you think the studios forgot to erase his name off the poster for less then eight minutes, and Ray Winstone, who plays Terrier's longtime friend, isn't given enough time on screen either, even though every time he appears he gives "The Gunman" some sort of life and drive.
"The Gunman," in a way, feels like a direct replica of the Kevin Costner aging action hero vehicle "3 Days to Kill" that simmered in publicity before anyone got a chance to buy a ticket (though it's one of the few of the genre very much worth seeing, more so than any "Taken" installment).
The "aging action hero" concept has prevented the early retirements and the wealth of endorsement possibilities for people like Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone, Liam Neeson, Kevin Costner, and now Sean Penn, as a means to make a living, but it's a concept as worn as the joints on all those men.I feel like erasing my entire review of "The Gunman" and replacing it with Leonard Maltin's review of "Scooby Doo 2: Monster's Unleashed," which ranks as one of the shortest film reviews ever written.
If you don't believe me, go ahead and watch The Gunman, and put this in your pocket for later: "I told you so."Javier Bardem uses this stinker as an opportunity to teach us the art of overacting in a second language.The woman in the film, whose name I don't want to know, is probably the only actress in the world who could match Sean Penn in boringness and lack of on-screen personality.
She does a great job of making sure you don't suddenly wake up during the film.Despite all the above big-money actors doing their best to compete against each other and completely forget the fact that there's a camera in the room with them, this movie can't save itself from its own infestation of story lines.
Sean Penn plays Terrier a former security contractor and hit-man working in the Congo who assistants a government minister and this catches up with him a few years down the line as a corporate company seeks to liquidate him .
Lots of things happen when Terrier gets there , usually the same thing involving guns and people getting killed and the audience have probably become completely bored by the halfway point as one set-piece crashes in to another THE GUNMAN is an example of if you have a good cast this won't mean a single thing unless you've given them material to work with via a screenplay .
This movie is so boring(yawn) that we've seen these scenes so many times before.1% inspiration 99% perspiration.Why was this piece of dreck even made and whose decision was it to cast a anti-gun commie/socialist like Penn to begin with!
This film feels like it's trying to reincarnate the Liam Neeson style of action movie and it falls flat on its face.
It has Sean Penn in a Liam Neeson-type veteran badass role with Javier Bardem and Idris Elba as supporting characters, which sounds great.
The story is Sean Penn's character and some other guys get together for a contract killing or something like that, then years later people from the job start getting killed off and Penn has to figure out what's going on.
The Gunman is a movie that can easily be skipped.Full Review:The Gunman, from the director of the first Taken starring Sean Penn and Javier Bardem.
Soon after, Morel graduated to director, helming the original "Taken" (2008), the movie which reinvented Liam Neeson as an action film star, followed that with John Travolta's "From Paris with Love" (2010) and then "The Gunman".
That's a very good resume – and "The Gunman" is a very good film!Morel's latest globe-trotting actioner stars Sean Penn (in his first major big screen role in two years) as Jim Terrier, an ex-special forces soldier.
(I personally know someone who saw Penn walking the streets of Port-au-Prince, Haiti in the weeks following that country's devastating 2010 earthquake.) While the action's backdrop makes the story a little political, it also allows for an interesting variety of characters and locales to parade across the big screen.
Since the director of the first Taken film directed this movie, you should know the action scenes will be great.
With some well written characters the story is solid, and an all around good effort.The Gunman was directed by Pierre Morel, who as I mentioned in my opening paragraph directed the first Taken film, he also directed From Paris with Love, and did some work on the Transporter series.
The film stars Sean Penn with other actors like Javier Bardem, Ray Winstone, and Idris Elba popping in throughout the film as well.
The problem is not that I don't like this film, it is a question of personal taste, or that it is full of bloopers, it is just the way we can see that the makers simply didn't put the amount of effort, work and thinking into their own work so that they at least would create a category B action movie, as the story itself would anyhow predestine this.
Someone is killing those involved with the mission 8 years ago and Penn needs to find out who and why before he gets killed.The first half of the movie - once the prologue is over - is overly long and lacks any real action.
This is particularly disappointing as the director of this film, Pierre Morel, was the Cinematographer of the first two TRANSPORTER films and is the director of the first TAKEN film, so I thought he'd have the tone of these types of movies down.I see that Penn has a writing credit on this film, so I have got to believe that the over-serious tone of this movie has come from him.Penn , as stated above, is overly-serious in his portrayal of Terrier, while Rylance and Bardem seem to be having a little less serious time with their characters.
'THE GUNMAN': Four Stars (Out of Five)Another respectable (and very serious) A-list actor turns to B- action movies, very late in his career (and at over 50-years of age); following the likes of stars like Liam Neeson.
I think it's a blast and a lot of fun though; if you like B-action movies!Penn plays Jim Terrier; a highly skilled mercenary assassin, working for an unnamed employer.
Terrier then goes on a deadly mission; to find out who was behind the attempt on his life, and save his ex- girlfriend.Sean Penn is in amazing shape, in this movie, especially at 54- years-old!
That's why this got mostly bad reviews, I think, and didn't do really well at the Box Office; Penn isn't an action movie star (that's for sure).
While the collective acting prowess is barely able to keep the film interesting, these experienced actors surprisingly don't perform consistently enough to fully maximize their potential.Story follows Terrier (Sean Penn), a secret operative who fled an African country after an assassination.
Idris Elba is always engaging, but he only makes brief appearance, even shorter than Bardem.The bulk of the film rests on Sean Penn, who is undeniably a good actor and looking physically fit for this role, although he doesn't seem to be comfortable here.
What a wonderful movie, never seen action movie like this, we love "sean Penn" since "state of grace" bravo "Penn", hopefully this movie become the greatest ever, watch this movie and you don't want left your chair, and expected many times will see this movie again, let's go together going to your nearest cinema and feel the spirit of bravery, every man in this world want to see this movie.
Based on the novel "The Prone Gunman" by Jean-Patrick Manchette, "The Gunman" is a conventional action-movie potboiler featuring a roided- out Sean Penn as an ex-special ops agent and professional assassin whose violent past is coming back to haunt him.
In the film Sean Penn plays a guy working in the African mining trade, he did some bad things now he is on the run.
For an actor like Sean penn , I think this is a role we have not seen him play, I totally admire him trying to be a better artist, I am not going to knock him for that, but to me it just didn't work.
Sure pretty much, but still a good watch.To all those who say Penn is too old for action movies, he is 54.
The cast is stellar, Sean Penn is in great form in a movie that is, sadly, his first leading role since his Academy Award winning performance in Milk, he certainly seems interested and invested in the character, as does Jasmine Trinca and Javier Bardem, also Idris Elba's scenes are some of the films finest and I was pleasantly surprised to see him in this, but this cast aren't enough to make up for the formulaic and predictable plot that never goes in a direction that captivates its audience.
The film desperately tries to begin a franchise here, you can feel it constantly, they're not trying hard enough to tell a good story in two hours, but go for setting the movie up for sequels instead, it wanted to revive Sean Penn's career by making him an aging action star, similar to what Taken did successfully for Liam Neeson, but for someone who's given us outstanding performances from the likes of Mystic River and Carlito's Way, it saddens me to see such a talented actor trying to renew his fame with a boring action film that he also has a writing and producing credit on.
Returning to the Congo years later, he becomes the target of a hit squad himself.The Gunman stars Sean Penn and is brought to you by Pierre Morel, director of the very first and still best Taken film.
The film's best scene is actually its opening one, when Sean Penn's character gets to do some sniper things; but he spends most of the rest of the movie, looking at his ex-girlfriend, looking very sad and having conversation why their relationship didn't work out in the first place.
Plus, Sean Penn doesn't work out as an action star despite his great looking body.
But I get that people might have expected something with more action set pieces, especially with a title like that (and I'm pretty sure the trailer might have suggested that as well too).But the movie is really good and I'm surprised at the shape Sean Penn is in (or was in for the movie).
Besides, in the supporting cast, there are unexpectedly bad performances from usually solid actors such as Idris Elba, Ray Winstone and Javier Bardem; I guess they participated in this movie for the money, and not because they liked the screenplay (something ironic, considering the fact that the main character of the film is a mercenary).
At first it is hard to imagine Sean Penn in an action film and harder in a lead marksman role, but then I watched this .
A good character / action role for Sean Penn in a complex movie.
Good Penn Action Film.
But I am a (good) action film junkie, and I liked this unlike other reviewers who basically placed it in the movie trash bin.
Its just 2 hours of watching Sean Penn on the run with his girlfriend, with a bit of action along the way.