Undiscovered Gems

Way of the gun. (2000)

I only saw this about a month ago but I couldn’t believe it had slipped under my radar. Written and directed by Christopher Mcquarrie the writer of The Usual Suspects, the film stars Benicio Del Toro and Ryan Phillippe as two ruthless drifters who stumble upon a chance to kidnap a young pregnant women (Juliette Lewis) who is being a surrogate mother for a mob boss type character. James Caan is thrown into the mix and everything unravels, the film is full of shootouts car chases and fun dialogue. The plot is convoluted at times and the directing is sometimes off but it’s a solid two hours of intense action and any film where James Caan is a bad ass should always be seen, that’s right even Eraser! Oh yeah and Sarah Silverman even has a small part in it. The story behind the film is pretty interesting from what I can gather looking around Wikipedia and various other sites this was Mcquarrie’s attempt to make a bit of a commercial name for himself after not being given the time of day by most studio’s, the film goes against type a lot and the two main characters are not the archetypal antiheroes. It was made for about $20 million and made only just over half its budget back (which is probably the reason why you might have missed it) it also had mixed reviews, Ebert gave it 2 and a half out of four criticizing a bit of characterization, but there was strong response to James Caan and others criticized the directing.

Again if you haven’t seen it yet, it is definitely worth a couple of watches.

Currently $8.50 on Amazon, give it a go (click the pic)



-Zac