BEFORE: Liam Neeson carries over from "The Marksman" - and there are really TWO (at least) movies titled "Gun Shy". There's this one and another that looks even worse, in which Antonio Banderas plays a rock star whose wife gets kidnapped. Wouldn't you know it, I tried to record this Liam Neeson film on my DVR - it was clearly labeled in the program guide as such - and instead, the cable channel ran the Antonio Banderas film from 2017. Because of course they did.
I had a similar problem trying to watch the film "Kicking and Screaming", directed by Noah Baumbach and released in 1995. Again, clearly labeled in the program guide, but every time I recorded it or chose it on demand, it turned out to be the 2005 film "Kicking & Screaming" with Will Ferrell in it. That film may have been more popular, but that's no excuse to advertise the wrong film in the listings. Can we have some quality control at these big cable movie channels, please? Same goes for "Death at a Funeral", there's a 2007 comedy with British actors directed by Frank Oz, but when it appears in the listings, it usually turns out to be the 2010 American remake with Chris Rock and Kevin Hart. They're both funny, sure, but let's just try to label them correctly, OK?
Frankly, this is a bad sign, if the cable channel's not even bothering to check which film named "Gun Shy" is airing next week. Who cares? Nobody's going to try and watch it anyway, except one stupid guy in Queens, NY. Anybody else who stumbles on to the wrong film named "Gun Shy" isn't going to care, or is desperate enough to watch anything while they fall asleep. I probably SHOULD just skip this film and move on, January is already an over-filled month, and dropping a film would sure help. But I just can't do it...
THE PLOT: An undercover agent relies on the support of an unstable therapy group while working a sting operation.
AFTER: I found the film FOR FREE on YouTube, and that's another bad sign - nobody cares enough about this movie to protect it, to invoke copyright infringement and have the random postings of it taken down. So, clearly, there's probably not a good enough film here to protect.
Naturally, now I'm wishing I had taken the hint and NOT watched this, because it's just terrible. But how was I supposed to know that before watching it? I've seen a few movies that got horrible reviews and I still found something redeeming about them, but this is a complete mess.
It's pretty clear that the screenwriter here had no direct knowledge of how undercover operations work, same goes for the stock marker - probably just watched "Trading Places" a few times. I can probably say the same about group therapy - as I'm pretty sure an undercover agent isn't supposed to discuss his ongoing operation with complete strangers in a session. The screenwriter may know a thing or two about intestinal distress, flatulence and enemas, and just expanded out from there, but come on, is that really enough to build a movie around?
I can only imagine that since this was released one year after "The Sopranos" made its debut, that may have been an influence. "Fish out of water", let's take a mobster or undercover agent and put him into therapy. Brilliant idea for an HBO show, terrible idea for a movie that's just got too many other things going on, without really accomplishing anything. There's also a mobster who's just as screwed-up as Tony Soprano - he really just wants to get out of the business and be a gardener, but then he'd miss out on all the fun of intimidating people and having them whacked. Right.
Our lead character, Charlie, the DEA Agent, also dreams of retiring, he carries around a brochure of a luxury housing complex, presumable down in Florida or something, but he's never going to get there unless he completes this big operation to bring down the cartel, and he's never going to do THAT if he can't get his IBS under control. It's implied that his anxiety and upset stomach stem from the last operation he worked, where his partner was killed and he was strapped to a buffet table with his face in a platter of watermelon and a gun shoved up his ass. That's...well, that's a very specific kink for somebody, and a valid reason to hate watermelon, I suppose, though better reasons are that it's got no nutritional value, and tastes terrible.
Other random things - I'm pretty sure that a nurse isn't supposed to one of her patients, administering an enema in no way counts as a "meet-cute", and the nurse and the government agent had zero chemistry together - ZE-RO. We couldn't even hear them talking as they walked around the city together, so are we even sure they had anything in common?
And the production design was just abysmal, from the animal heads in the Mafia don's office to the D.E.A. office, which clearly resulted from the art director telling the set designer, "You know, an office. There should be desks and computers and phones, and that's it. Nothing that makes it look like a law office or a newspaper staff room." But in the end, it just looks like a set. "Also, we're going to need a very warehouse-y looking warehouse for the final showdown. Make sure there are lots of big mechanical things nobody can identify, OK? And big footlocker-like suitcases, which I'm pretty sure is what criminals carry their money for deals in." And sure, use a lot of shots of the World Trade Center, because it's the year 2000, and we feel like those buildings represent NYC and will be around forever.
Bottom line, don't make the same mistake I did - if you get a chance to NOT watch this movie, you should probably take it.
Also starring Oliver Platt (last seen in "Lucky Them"), Sandra Bullock (last seen in "The Lost City"), Jose Zuniga (last seen in "The Hunted"), Michael DeLorenzo (last seen in "Alive"), Andy Lauer (last seen in "Iron Man 3"), Richard Schiff (last seen in "Geostorm"), Paul Ben-Victor (last seen in "Empire State"), Gregg Daniel, Ben Weber, Mary McCormack (last seen in "Fathers' Day"), Michael Mantell (last seen in "Live by Night"), Mitch Pileggi (last seen in "Vampire in Brooklyn"), Louis Giambalvo, Rick Peters (last seen in "Elvis Meets Nixon"), Dusty Kay, Jerry Stahl (last seen in "August: Osage County"), Michael Weatherly, Hank Stratton, Frank Vincent (last seen in "The Crew"), Frankie Ray, Taylor Negron (last seen in "River's Edge"), Joe Maruzzo, Aaron Lustig (last seen in "The Rum Diary"), Tracy Zahoryin, Michelle Joyner, Manny Perry, David Carpenter (last seen in "Crimes of the Heart"), Tommy Morgan Jr., Roy Buffington, Myndy Crist (last seen in "The Jane Austen Book Club"), Jack Janda (last seen in "Eye for an Eye")
RATING: 3 out of 10 bathroom stalls
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