By Amy Diaz
HippoPress.com
The Way of the Gun (Rated R)

Ryan Phillippe and Benicio Del Toro shoot at everything that moves and quite a few things that don't in The Way of the Gun, the latest movie from Christopher McQuarrie, the screenwriter of The Usual Suspects.

Phillippe and Del Toro play drifter-criminals who decide that kidnapping pays better than selling their semen. Their hostage is Robin (Juliette Lewis), a young pregnant woman. She is carrying a child for a couple who, like all totally legitimate people, are paying her a million in cash and assign a team of bodyguards to follow her. Naturally, these people aren't in a position to go to the police for help and so begins a series of plot twists that leads to a road trip to Mexico and a stand off at a picturesque bordello.

The Way of the Gun is a Charleton Heston wet dream - every scene is armed with at least half a dozen big, loud weapons. The characters are weapons as well as just about everybody is a criminal of some kind. Everybody is a chip in somebody else's game. The plot unfolds with a lot of the kind of surprises viewers have come to expect in caper movies. Clever dialog and mostly solid performances save the movie from becoming predictable.

In fact, The Way of the Gun has almost all of the perfect elements of a good movie. It has a good script and an interesting story; it has intriguing characters played by good actors (more or less) and it does a good job of building tension and suspense. The fact that I didn't really enjoy this movie leaves me baffled.

Despite a trailer that tries to sell The Way of the Gun as a dark comedy, the movie doesn't have a lot of funny (or fun) moments. The heavier, philosophical moments didn't give the movie a soul so much as they just weighed the story down. (At a certain point, a hit man's feelings about life and death are kind of irrelevant. Just do the job already and move the story along.) Phillippe's voice over narration is at times irritating and adds to the movie's occasional detours into self-importance. A seemingly major deception about two thirds through the movie isn't really explained or followed through.

The Way of the Gun's flaws aren't fatal to the story, but add to my general sense of dissatisfaction. The Way of the Gun lacks the spark and the superior storytelling that made The Usual Suspects such a fun ride.

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