Posted: 02/07/2000

Gun Shy

(2000)

by Hank Yuloff

Liam Neeson tries his hand at comedy in a Sandra Bullock-produced pic that fails on all counts, according to our seasoned reviewer.

Black comedy is supposed to make you laugh at how dark it is. The trouble is, if it doesn’t make you laugh, is it just so dark you don’t get it, or did the movie just only get to about a 70% grey? Such is the case with Gun Shy.

Liam Neeson (Schindler’s List) stars as Charlie Mayough, a DEA agent who has lost his fastball. He wants out. He wants to take care of his ultra sensitive colon and go sit on a beach and watch the water. Just as soon as he wraps up this one last case, he’s going to do just that. This is another tired, misdirection, Bad Guy vs. Good Guy, who will end up with the money yawner of a movie. Unless you just like looking at Sandra Bullock (both Speeds, While You Were Sleeping) or Neeson and are willing to pay a few ducats for the privilege.

Problems. Yes, there are problems. The biggest one is that undercover DEA agents are not supposed to give up there cover. Even in a black comedy. Neeson goes into therapy and ends up as the prime storyteller to a 5-person therapy group. Now imagine you were one of these other guys. Would you REALLY want to know this guy was messing around with drug lords and the mob? Is each guy that much of a loser that they are living vicariously through Neeson? But without the group, most of the story doesn’t get told and there won’t be a way to bail his butt out in the third act.

Bullock’s character. She tells us there’s more than meets the eye with her, but there wasn’t enough of her part to fill us in on why she drives a 60s vintage Chevy or what the hell she’s doing with a rooftop garden, or how is that she knows more about healing Neeson than her barium-enema-prescribing boss. [One side note: if I ever need a barium enema… I sure wouldn’t mind if Bullock was the one giving it to me.]

Type casting: Mitch Pileggi from The X-Files playing the bad DEA agent. I can see the story meeting: “Hey, and why don’t we get that really good FBI boss that Mulder’s got and make him the bad guy here!” Yeah. How funny.

First-time director Eric Blakeney (Generation-X for TV, if any of us saw that), did an admirable job for a rookie. I can see where he was going. He just needed to go a little farther over the edge. Let me give you the good stuff about this movie.

1. Liam Neeson. Never seen him do badly. His acting is right there.
2. The score. Especially the beginning. Great music.
3. Sandra Bullock. Probably the reason I went to see the movie… but I think her next one, 28 Days, is going to be much better because there’s more of her in the movie. I have a feeling that most of her performance never made the final cut of Gun Shy.
4. Oliver Platt as Fulvio Nesstra. This guy has done 27 movies in 12 years and is going to end up being one of those actors that every time you see him, you know he has been one of your favorites, but you can’t always remember what he was in. Here, he’s the mob guy, Fulvio Nesstra, who yearns for a better life. Great job.
5. The photography. Some great action scenes. Like watching a ballet. There are a few times when you are seeing two scenes at once, with cut-backs to both conversations. Too bad the whole movie didn’t move as quickly as these parts.

When new movies are coming out, we here at Filmmonthly.com (“We see the movies so you don’t always have to.”) get a chance to choose what we review (by the way Del, I call dibs on 28 Days… I’ll pay another 8 bucks to spend a couple of hours in the dark with Bullock). This hopefully allows us to see the movies we like or think will be good. Well, I chose poorly here. This one will end up on my worst 10 for 2000 list—I’m guessing around #6—because I just can’t imagine seeing 10 others that will be worse. Especially if Blair Witch 2 doesn’t come out this year.

Hank Yuloff lives in Los Angeles, where he can be close to the heart of all that Hollywood madness.

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