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How entertaining? ★★☆☆☆
Thought provoking? ★☆☆☆☆ 15 January 2015
This article is a review of SON OF A GUN.Seen at the London Film Festival 2014 (For more information, click here.)
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“We’re all no one in here,” Brendan Lynch (Ewan McGregor)
McGregor playing mentor to a teenage Padawan has unwanted sweat-inducing STAR WARS prequel flashbacks. Charismatic swagger and tussle-with-at-your-peril presence, it is a shame the Scottish thesp has not broken out as an action star. Perhaps the one-two punch of working with George Lucas and Michael Bay (THE ISLAND) floored his career as a big time movie star? Shame. SON OF GUN is a flimsy thriller, but its only wise move is casting the former Obi-Wan Kenobi.
Opening à la STARRED UP, sans the same sense of dread, Jesse Ryan White a.k.a. J.R. (Brenton Thwaites – THE SIGNAL) has just entered prison for a six-month stretch. His decency is demonstrated almost immediately by attempting to protect cellmate from the institution’s equivalent of THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION’s Sisters. Rather than saving, he becomes the gang’s target. In steps criminal legend Brendan (McGregor) and his pals, who unflinchingly, brutally put a stop to the menace. Shielding comes at a price: Once released J.R. must return the favour by breaking his guardian angel out of prison. So far two movies in one, and we haven’t even got to the meat.
McGregor playing mentor to a teenage Padawan has unwanted sweat-inducing STAR WARS prequel flashbacks. Charismatic swagger and tussle-with-at-your-peril presence, it is a shame the Scottish thesp has not broken out as an action star. Perhaps the one-two punch of working with George Lucas and Michael Bay (THE ISLAND) floored his career as a big time movie star? Shame. SON OF GUN is a flimsy thriller, but its only wise move is casting the former Obi-Wan Kenobi.
Opening à la STARRED UP, sans the same sense of dread, Jesse Ryan White a.k.a. J.R. (Brenton Thwaites – THE SIGNAL) has just entered prison for a six-month stretch. His decency is demonstrated almost immediately by attempting to protect cellmate from the institution’s equivalent of THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION’s Sisters. Rather than saving, he becomes the gang’s target. In steps criminal legend Brendan (McGregor) and his pals, who unflinchingly, brutally put a stop to the menace. Shielding comes at a price: Once released J.R. must return the favour by breaking his guardian angel out of prison. So far two movies in one, and we haven’t even got to the meat.
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SON OF A GUN morphs seamlessly into a heist flick once Brendan is out of the joint. Laying low is not an option it seems, robbing an Aussie goldmine is though. Recruiting a game Jesse sets up the rest of the runtime (allowing for weak romantic subplot involving an under-utilised Alicia Vikander – TESTAMENT OF YOUTH).
SON OF A GUN stumbles, not at ambition to shake up the crime genre, but lacking panache and interesting ideas. Other work continually rears their head in comparison: For youth incarcerated, see ANIMAL FACTORY; for chutzpah detention escape, see MESRINE; and for larceny via automatic weapons, see HEAT. The latter is a pinnacle of cramming in multiple narrative elements to dizzying effect (cops and robbers, serial killer, domestic neglect).
Added to a cinema experience equivalent of the air being slowly let out of a balloon, is a chess analogy. The game of cerebral one-upmanship should never be used lightly as allegory; comparisons rarely come off well for the movie straining for such levels of credibility (an exception example: BLADE RUNNER). “Son of sorrow” is an all-out opening gambit Brendan teaches J.R., a chess move not realised by the predictable story.
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