Here, Penn plays Jim Terrier, an expert sniper who works at a private security firm protecting humanitarian aid efforts in the Democratic Republic of Congo. While doing this, he’s assigned to assassinate the mining minister, a job that will come to haunt him in the future. Seven years later, unnamed assassins attempt to kill him, so Jim must travel to London and then Barcelona to find out who’s hunting him.
Penn is competent in the role: He can certainly kick ass and clearly has been working out. We’re never in doubt of his ability to gain the upper-hand in a situation. Unfortunately, Penn doesn’t have much charisma or the soothing, gravelly voice Neeson has.
Add to this the fact that the character of Jim is one-dimensional and you’ve got an underwhelming action hero trying to drive a cliché, derivative action picture. Penn doesn’t have the personality or style to elevate the material.
The action sequences are shot in typical Bourne-style shaky-cam, an action movie fad that’s become stale and kind of annoying to watch. Yet, to Morel’s credit, the action beats are well spaced throughout the film.
At the same time, the non-action sequences aren’t very compelling, either. The plot is standard-issue, action, cover-up fare and most of the story’s events and big revelations are obvious 20 minutes before they appear.
The only mildly interesting aspect of the movie is the underlying theme of business corrupting philanthropy. As the set-up suggests, the very same security company hired to provide protection to aid workers could also be hired by a private company to do bad things. However this is only lightly explored, with Morel, instead, choosing to focus on the more generic aspects of the movie.
Even worse, for a movie this derivative, “The Gunman” takes itself awfully seriously, opting to be stiff and rigid, as opposed to embracing its silly, pulpy material. Penn is the worst offender, running around the streets of Barcelona —gun in hand — like he’s Daniel Day Lewis. Only the supporting cast — with the likes of Javier Bardem as an old friend and Mark Rylance as the former head of the security company Jim worked for — manage to have some fun, their performances verging on loopy at times. Sadly, even their contributions aren’t enough to save the picture.
Otherwise, there are some gunfights, a love interest, a finale at a bull-fighting ring and Jim has some sort of post-concussion brain condition. On the whole, “The Gunman” is dull to watch most of the time and does nothing to stand out. And Penn makes for a rather unremarkable action hero — too bad.