Reviewed by

Christopher Armstead

Apparently Val Kilmer and Curtis ’50 Cent’ Jackson enjoyed working with each other so much on the movie ‘Streets of Blood’ that they decided to re-up and do the damn thing one more time again. Unfortunately for us over here at the FCU we saw ‘Streets of Blood’ and if anybody were to ask me, which they didn’t, but if they did I would’ve told them Jackson and Kilmer probably didn’t need to be making any more movies together. Now as it turns out I actually enjoyed the 78 or so minutes that I spent with this movie ‘Gun’, be it due to lowered expectations or the fact that the last half dozen movies that I’ve seen in which Val Kilmer headlined were mostly terrible, but this wasn’t one of those movies.

Dateline Detroit. This movie was actually shot up the road in Grand Rapids, a city that it looks like 50 Cent has taken complete control over since he’s shot like four or five movie there. But G-Rap does have busted up buildings so it’s Detroit now. Anyway, crime is rampant and money for city services like cops and stuff is tight which makes things just perfect for Rich the Gun Runner (Jackson). He’s rudely taken out his main competition, he’s supplying the streets with military grade firearms and the cops, led by tough cop Detective Rogers (James Remar), cannot do anything about it.

We have a city called Jackson here in Michigan where we house the worst of our felons and today one of those felons, going by the name of Angel (Kilmer), is out on the street. First thing he does is look up his boy Rich to see if he can get himself some gainful criminal employment and with Rich knowing Angel to take no guff from no one, and with Rich owing Angel a solid, Rich has a new right hand man.

It doesn’t take long for Angel to show his worth after he mows down Danny Trejo and a couple of his hairnet wearing homeboys after they try to pull the double cross. You mean to tell me that Danny Trejo was in town and he couldn’t drop me a line? Maybe enjoy a coney dog or something? I know that has nothing to do with anything but I had to get that out.

What Rich really wants to do is go big time, start supplying the entire nation with illegal firearms and his contact / lady love Gabriella (AnnaLynne McCord) is primed to make that happen, but her contacts have intel that somebody on Rich’s team might be informing the cops. But who could someone be? Is it his boy Clinton (Hassan Johnson)? His number one ace Dante (Charles Malik Winfield)? I mean Dante is a good choice since Rich did put a loaded .45 Magnum up to his temple, or maybe it’s Angel? The answer will shock Rich. Not us, but it will shock Rich.

Just so you know ‘Gun’ doesn’t present us with cinema’s most complex narrative. Director Jessy Terrero helms a movie that is very lean, bare, cold and very, very mean, and it is also a story that doesn’t give the viewer much to ponder outside of what we are seeing on the screen. This movie is actually the anti-‘Streets of Blood’ in the sense that that movie was overly complex and someone thought it was a good idea to cast Curtis Jackson as tortured and confused family man. This particular story has Curtis Jackson listed as the writer and it looks like to me the man has pretty good idea what he is capable of as an actor. Rich, as he is presented in this movie, is one part charm and nine parts hyper energetic brutality, and Curtis Jackson plays him well. Even though Val Kilmer’s character of Angel is the lynchpin of this movie he isn’t given an awful lot to do, which is probably for the best. Kilmer might have ten lines of dialog in this movie and spent the majority of this movie looking depressed and in desperate need of a haircut. Kind of how he looked in the last few movies we’ve seen him in, but the filmmakers kind of worked that look into the story, so it fit.

In addition, the movie has a very solid supporting cast in James Remar, Paul Calderon, and John Larouqette of all people playing the chief gun runner, and the guy who probably had the best line in the whole movie, not to mention AnnaLynne McCord who cleans up really, really well. I mean Revlon and the makeup department in this movie were on their A+ game when putting this woman’s face on.

Again, there’s not a lot of substance to ‘Gun’ as feels like it’s ending just as it’s coming on, but I’ve seen shorter movies that felt a lot longer and this wasn’t one of those. Simple, lean and mean. Not a bad combination for a brutal crime flick.