Mean Guns

Plot synopsis:
Vincent Moon (Ice-T) is the leader of a crime syndicate that has just built a new prison. The day before it is to open, he brings together 100 people who have wronged the syndicate in various ways, provides them with weapons and ammunition, and gives them six hours to fight each other to the death. A $10 million cash prize is hidden in the prison, to be split by the last three survivors, but Moon's men will move in and kill everyone when time runs out.
A loose alliance forms between Cam (Van Valkenburgh), an accountant who was intercepted while trying to give photographic evidence of the syndicate's crimes to the authorities, and Marcus (Halsey) and D (Warren), two professional killers. They are soon interrupted by another killer, Lou (Lambert), who briefly holds Marcus at gunpoint before being reluctantly accepted into the group. Lou is the informal guardian of a little girl named Lucy (Doughty), whom he has left in his car outside the prison. Cam is badly shaken by the violence raging around her and cannot bring herself to kill anyone.
The four broadcast an announcement over the prison's public address system, claiming that they have found the money and daring everyone to fight them for it. Cam slips away as dozens are killed in the ensuing melee, and D abandons the group only to be strangled to death by Lou. After Moon announces the actual location of the money, Marcus finds two briefcases placed in that spot and takes them, leaving behind a third one rigged with a bomb. Marcus brings Lucy into the prison to help him take out the cash; a woman, who wandered into the prison before the game began, finds the bomb and is killed when it blows the top of her head off.
During these events, Lou reveals that he took Lucy into his care after her mother and stepfather were killed, and that he is participating in the game in order to provide for her future. Cam retrieves the pictures she was trying to turn over and shows them to Marcus, saying that she had not realized the extent of the syndicate's money laundering in which she was involved until she saw them. Marcus reveals that Moon brought him into the game in the hope that he would be the only survivor.
Moon summons the final three survivors - Cam, Lou, and Marcus - to a four-way showdown. He gives each of them a gun and keeps a fourth for himself, but deliberately fails to load the one given to Lou. Marcus shoots Cam and then Lou, whom Moon dismisses as a liability due to his violent nature and desire for revenge against Marcus for raping his daughter. Marcus then kills Moon when Moon tries to quick-draw on him. The wounded Lou admits that Lucy is his biological daughter before he and Marcus kill each other.
Cam wakes up to find Lucy standing over her. Marcus had killed Lou at Lucy's request and only grazed Cam with his shot so she could fake her death. Cam drives off in Lou's car with Lucy and the prize money.

Tags: revenge, action, murder, violence, flashback

Review:
The only thing that stops this from being a B-movie, is that it's actually really, really good.When "The Syndicate", represented by Ice-T, gathers together it's less reliable members in an empty prison for a little game, the probability of violence was always going to be a definite.What makes this movie different is in large part due to the choice of music.
This humour gives a consistent feel throughout the movie, backed up by violence that while brutal is strangely un-graphic.Mean Guns is an action movie with a quirky sense of humour and a brain.
And I don't know who thought of using a mambo sound track in an action movie, but it's PERFECT!
In addition to The T, we get other B movie perennials doing their thing; Christopher Lambert brings his own brand of acting to a more jovial - and unhinged - character than usual.
As one will notice, the cast is largely made up of regulars in the films of the prolific Albert Pyun, and it don't matter if the acting ain't ever gonna win any awards; it still gets the job done.
The T is amusing in the lead, and Lambert is actually a hoot, although it's veteran Halsey that really stands out, playing one of the most interesting characters in the whole thing.
It's hard to knock a movie that immediately goes for the approach of underscoring the fast and furious action with mambo music, which adds to the humour.
It's a cleverly filmed shoot-em-up with a thin, but unexpectedly interesting plot, some talented actors hamming it up with reckless abandon (Lambert, Halsey, Ice-T, Van Valkenburgh and Cote) and a great sense of humor.The premise seems simple enough.
The three who survive can walk away with ten million dollars.In one way or another, each of the assassins participating in this deadly game is psychotic, but Michael Halsey and Chris Lambert really take their roles for a ride.
Lambert is perfectly cast as the only voluntary participant, and Halsey does a nice job as a cool, rational killer with a troubled conscience.Some of the acting is, to be sure, pretty atrocious (Kimberly Warren is terribly miscast, but nevertheless amusing), but the directing (by the unfairly derided Albert Pyun) is truly great.
Mean Guns parodies Pulp Fiction, itself, and even its entire genre constantly - from one ridiculous scene of near-slapstick violence to another.The cinematography is perfect for the genre, and the incongruously happy mambo soundtrack constantly reinforces the film's comedic aspects.Highly recommended for fans of "guy flicks".
Also, when a man like Ice-T tosses you the baseball bat in his hands and says, "I want to see if I'm as bad as I say I am." Do not, I repeat, do not attempt to fight him...
I don't really like action movies, and I never really got into shoot-em-ups, but I loved this.
The plot, as I figured out, was that all these people were locked in an old prison, given weapons and tons of ammo, and left to kill each other off until, supposedly, the last three were left, who would then get the prize of ten million dollars.Thus begins the nonstop action, as the various characters split up, form groups, and kill each other.
At first, the story seemed a little thin to carry itself along throughout the whole film, but it did, perfectly, all the way up to the quite twisted ending, which just keeps surprising you.
My favorite character: Con. She was easy to relate to (yes, I know, I'm delving too much into this B-rated action flic, but oh well) and you could feel bad for her.
All in all, an action movie that's fun, intense, creepy at times, and with a few morals.
I remember watching this on VHS with a friend who was obsessed with Christopher Lambert and thinking it was quite interesting and I would like to see it again.
Let's whack it in the player and see if this was actually worth the $3 Australian I paid for it.So we start with Ice T (he's in this) a major player in a crime syndicate who's invited 100 hardened criminals (and one seemingly innocent girl), who have all wronged his syndicate, to fight to the death inside a prison facility that is to be opened the following day.
Though there are a few scenes where director Albert Pyun (B-movie go to guy) can't help himself.
The cast in this movie consists of only a few name people such as Ice-T and Christopher Lambert, but to be honest the entire cast puts in some fairly good performances all around.
What makes this movie so entertaining is that it combines action with a touch of insight into the lives of a group of criminals who all seem to want different things aside from just money.
Despite the apparent low budget, the movie is really quite well done with a good script, interesting camera work, and a compelling ending.
Definitely worth your time if you're looking for an action movie that differs from the norm..
The chaotic shootouts are not skillfully constructed, the story is both implausible and confusing (especially at the end, when it keeps trying to top itself with one stupid "twist" after another; it should have stuck to the rules it established in the beginning), and Lambert and Ice-T both give performances too awful for words.
What makes the picture fun is its premise, and some of the supporting members of the cast, particularly Michael Halsey (who really shines with a strong presence deserving of a far better movie), Okumoto and Matthews (whose duo is quite amusing to watch) and Tina Cote (who's pretty hot).
I just finished watching "Mean Guns," and, considering the action-stinkers that have been coming out in the past few months (Domestic Disturbance, The One), I found it to be a breath of fresh air.
I shall, however, explore the film's philosophy.The mambo music, which plays in the background as the characters shoot at each other, works to show how lightly society now sees and deals with violence, and in the end, the film points an accussing finger at all the viewers who allowed themselves to be taken in by the "engaging" (intentionally cliched) storyline, and suggesting that in our enjoyment of such a raunchy picture, we place outselves on a level no better than the horrible killer presented here.
The point is already made by the time the movie's final scenes begin, but they try to tie them all up in any case.
"Mean Guns" is a great movie as far as action goes.
Christopher Lambert and Ice-T are really the only two big names in the movie.
The rest of the cast is either virtually unknown or relatively unexperienced in the action movie genre.What happens when you dump a load of guns into a roomful of killers?
The deaths are fairly realistic; you don't get everyone being shot 14 times and then giving a long speech before finally doing a 540-backflip off a roof to their death.As far as action movies go, this is a good one.
A planeload of guys are standing in a room, suddenly guns and bats come falling out of the air and everybody starts killing each other, and it never really stops.
When you don't hear gun shots, you hear mambo music or something like that, but it soon gets interrupted with even more shooting.
Loved the way the movie unfolded in a rat-atat-tat fashion with unusually complex and colorful characters for an action film.
The real reason to see this film is the stunningly stone-cold performance by Michael Halsey as a gunman who has finally had enough of the dark side of life, but who needs to ply that close to the chest in order to survive an impossible situation.The situation is actually rather allegorical, a fact driven home by the absurdist intervention of a seven year old girl who plays a pivotal role at the end.
I love Christopher Lambert, he is soooooo incredibly cool and Ice-T shines as always...it's a match made in B-movie heaven.
The film itself has enough action to fill several movies and is sadly underrated and forgotten.
I highly recommend this for anyone who wants to watch an entertaining B-action movie without having to go through the trouble of having to think..
and funnily enough, it doesn't actually seem like an Albert Pyun film - i.e. it's not bad.The plot - or what there is of it - is irrelevant, just serving to waste the first 20 minutes of the film while everyone's twiddling their thumbs waiting for all the baddies to get into the building and start shooting sideways at each other.
And from there on it is indeed nothing but bullets, beatings and the odd surprisingly sharp line of dialogue, which should really be all you expect from a film with a name like Mean Guns.
Nonsensical 'plot' 'twists' and character discrepancies crop up everywhere, the mambo soundtrack doesn't really fit the action no matter how cool it sounds, and some of the firefights aren't even particularly exciting...
Christopher Lambert shot his scenes in two days and it shows, I am curious as to how long this whole movie took to shoot, it couldn't have taken much longer as Lambert appears in half the movie at least, of course in some scenes where action is meant to take place around his it can be seen that his scene was shot separately from the others.
Despite all this it's very entertaining and the promise is pretty clever and fun, makes you think how much better the movie could have been if it had a bigger budget.
I rented this movie because I had some free rentals from Blockbuster and thought what the hell why not I like Lambert and Ice T.
However before you think that all I will do is bash this film let me say that I loved it, the plot was thinner than paper but the characters were worth it all.
If you watch the movie it's mostly another shoot-em up action flick.
Some lack of realism (like Christopher Lambert's 17 shot shotgun) but still a great movie to watch..
I saw this movie at the video store that I work for and noticed Ice-T and Christopher Lambert on the cover and figured that it could'nt be that bad.
The story line keeps you interested in the movie especially when the action starts.The people who wrote this did a good job for a low budget flick.
The interesting part in the film is to see how people starts as individuals then accepts the fact that they must work in groups to have a better chance of survival.
With the added touch of mambo music to all the shooting this is a movie that stands out from the other action gunblasting flicks around.
Maybe it's that special something that makes the low budget movie Mean Guns so special..
Ice-T is my idol from music.i love his album original gangster and his song Cop Killer.he is the best rapper ever.i have heard that Ice-T wrote a book and it's called the ice opinion.all that makes is pure gold actually,but movies sometimes bad i don't mean 'Mean Guns' i mean 'New Jack City'.Ice-T's only real rival in rap is Krs One..
"Mean Guns" follows the Pyun's  formula: many shootings and closes in slow motion,different and weird camera movements, strange characters and a poor script.
Mean Guns came out a couple of years before the script for Battle Royale was written and it seems to me the movies are TOO similar to be coincidence.
Anyway, without Mean Guns you might not have had the movie Battle Royale and without Battle Royale we wouldn't have the Hunger Games.
I didn't know or care about any of the characters that got shot, stabbed, beaten or blown up.The only pleasure I got from "Mean Guns" was trying to decide which performance was worse:  Ice-T's or Lambert's.
It is almost like 'Hard Boiled' meets 'Cube.' Unfortunately the results are much below what one can expect.There is lots of shooting and fighting, but way the film is shot and lit is just poor.
Then practically every shot in the film is a close up on a character - either shooting or talking - but the point is that it is all just dreadfully dull.However, despite this the movie has a certain surreal quality to it.
Filmed almost exclusively inside a 20 story building, this movie focuses exclusively on the end result of 100 gangster screw jobs done to the wrong man played wonderfully by Ice-T.
It's just an excuse for Ice-T to play a bad ass - and to watch people beat and blow each other away for two hours.
Christopher Lambert stars as Lou seemingly invincible serial killer (He has just killed his daughter's step-father for molesting her) who along with a group play a battle royale, in which the prisoners are all forced to fight out to the death, until 3 are last standing which then get a million dollar prize.
Ice-T is the prison warden who is also probably going to die as well, what transpires is a downbeat yet at times very enjoyable Battle Royale scenario that is consistently watchable enough to be considered one of Pyun's better efforts.
An action picture needs a plot like this one to set up the sequences, but this one manages to be...bad.
Mean guns is just one big  shoot e'm up movie cliche.
Oh one other good thing about the movie is the soundtrack.....it makes you want to dance.
All around action and excitement as Albert Pyun brings to us a film about the world's most dangerous criminals and the obscene game of cat and mouse they must now play.
Lou is out for revenge for the murder of his daughter while Marcus wants redemption of another kind.The movie is highlighted by a great style of warm on cool lighting, fast edits and a cool and hip mambo soundtrack.
Several rip-off scenes from "The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly" where they stand around looking at each other with loaded guns while a spanish guitar plays.
It gives the Action movie category a bad name.
If you like to see females do some gunning at their very best, this is the movie, and so what?
This movie mainly just shows people getting their brains blown out and the ending to the film is pathetic.
The award ?, 10 million.So the film goes straight to the point by showing a series of shootings and lots of action, with some thoughtful pause to give some depth has a script that does not really have any.
i think Lambert and Ice T and my favorite actress of this movie Kimberly Warren ( D.
No, I'm really not exaggerating, this really is my #1 action movie of all time.
The directing is full of action movie clichés (though less so if you consider that it was done before The Matrix or Bad Boys or Shoot 'Em Up), but retains a certain stylish fleur of mamba shindig where only the cool ones are invited.The acting is accomplished entirely by the way of good casting (suitably so for cutout characters that this movie so nicely puts to use) - Lambert as an unstable Leon-type children-loving killer with a weight on his conscience, Halsey as an implacable killer with a heart, a worn-out accountant-journalist with a dirty conscience, a cool blonde killer girl with a chrome-plated Desert Eagle and so on.Every cliché that this movie invokes it surprisingly fresh - no less because these clichés managed to become clichés without a worthy, contemporary manifestation in the actual films worth watching.
Just because it has a low budget and a noted B movie director doesn't mean that he didn't create a bit of art out of what could have been schlock.Give it a chance if you like intense movies about the nature of violence or just a good shoot 'em up testosterone-fest that allows the few females a chance to shine as well.
Witham and Pyun confine the bedlam to the prison where Lou (Christopher Lambert), Marcus (Michael Halsey), Dee (Kimberly Warren), and Con (Deborah Van Valkenbugh) must dispatch hordes of gun-toting, bat-wielding bruisers with extreme prejudice.
The whole idea of only having three people left is also very interesting, as it comes out as to who these three people are and they consider whether those that they are associating with are the three, or if Moon must be one of the three as well.The violence in this movie is not explicit, rather there is simply a lot of killing, and this emphasises the attitudes of these characters: they will kill another human without another thought.
It is actually quite a good movie, and Moon is the type of character that Ice-T plays very well..
Whoever decided to go this way with the soundtrack deserves some kudos, because it definitely raises the film by a couple of notches.Christopher Lambert is in here front and center, as well as Stephen Rea and Ice-T.
When I first saw Mean Guns back in 2007, I was not a fan of the film.
The best performances in the film were from Christopher Lambert and Michael Halsey, playing polar opposites.
When you first see Marcus in the film, you don't like him as he kills a detective and kidnaps Cam. Solemn faced and soft spoken, his character is slowly fleshed out, to the point to where you believe he is the 'good guy'.
Once the shooting starts, Marcus saves Cam's life, and you begin believing that this is a tale of redemption for the 'kind-hearted hit-man'.By the end of the film, the point of these characters becomes clear.
I'm not lying out of all the characters one person is seen with a proper wound and I was worried cause I thought someone had actually shot her.now i'm not saying you need violence to make a film good...