Year of the Gun (1991)

Highly Overrated But Still Good

Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

The Red Brigade ( Brigatte Rosse ) was an Italian left wing terrorist organisation that in the 1970s launched a terrorist campaign to over throw the government of Italy and in its place have proletarian dictatorship that would lead to a classless Utopian society . Like its idealogical counterparts in the German Red Army Faction Brigatte Rosse had a problem mobilising the masses . This was undoubtedly due to the fact that hard left wing intellectualism fails to strike a chord in the human condition . Compare this to nationalist instincts that makes people in Northern Ireland want to join the IRA or the UVF or people living in the Gaza Strip or West Bank who join hard line Islamic terrorist organisations . By one of life's ironies the idea of left wing revolution in a democratic European state fails to appeal to few people except left wing middle class intellectuals hence the masses of Germany and Italy fail to mobilise and the terror caused by the German RAF and Italian BR quickly fizzled out YEAR OF THE GUN starts off by telling the audience that Italy in 1978 was on the brink of revolutian but was it ? True there was shootings and bombings and angry demonstrations against capitalism but as a potential revolution France in 1968 and Northern Ireland in the early 1970s both came closer than Italy in the late 1970s . As the story progresses the audience finds itself becoming more and more clueless to the situation at the time . Why are demonstrators flying red banners fighting with well dressed young men carrying crowbars ? You see the story soon starts ignoring Italian geo-politics and concentrates on the character of David Raybourne an American who has lived in America for several years and is in a loving relationship with an Italian woman . In fact there's so much time taken up with David's relationship you find your self looking at your watch wondering when something is going to happen There's two problems with the story , or rather one problem with the plot and one problem with the story telling . The plot when you stop to examine it becomes faintly ridiculous . David is writing a novel revolving around the Red Brigade and by an unlikely series of events the terrorists jump to the conclusion that he's a spy because the kidnap target in his novel is someone in real life the Red Brigade are planning to kidnap . I guess you're not supposed to think about this too much but aren't political thrillers supposed to be thought provoking ? The story telling itself is very poor because when Italian characters ( Who are almost always Red Brigade members ) get together they start speaking in Italian . Okay this is logical because for some reason in the cinematic world foreign characters suddenly start speaking in English when there's no English speaking characters present . Only problem is there's no subtitles and these frequent Italian speaking scenes mean any non Italian speaker won't have a clue as to what's going on which is a pity because I was wondering why the female terrorist likes to have men watch her when she goes to the toilet ! No I'm not kidding , there's a scene where this happens John Frankenheimer was once a highly regarded director who made THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE , BLACK Sunday and SECONDS and who would later make the highly entertaining RONIN . Unfortunately at this stage of his career he was making rubbish like the ecological horror movie PROPHECY and Marlon Brandos swan song that featured a bunch of genetically engineered mammals having acid house parties and shooting each other ( You know the movie I'm talking about ) and in terms of directing this is no different except perhaps that it resembles a TVM in standards . The sound mix is rather poor too A messy political thriller that won't educate you about 1970s European politics and almost certainly won't thrill you much either

SPOILERS!There are three redeeming features about this terrible film. 1. An exciting fight scene, ending in sex. 2. A Student riot. 3. A Speedy motorbike chase, ending with a murder.Apart from that, this film is surprisingly unpromising and McCarthy delivers one of the worst performances i've ever seen he might as well be a plank of wood for all he's worth. The location of rome could be shot well, but in dank, dark colours and photos of run down cobbled houses, he fails at th easiest of opportunities. This is almost as boring as the videos they show in history lessons at high school!Frankly, Disappointing. **/****

This is a rather two dimensional drama about some Americans who find themselves embroiled in the terrorist activities of the Red Brigade in Italy. The Americans are passionate idealists who have a lot of sex and the terrorists are the usual wooden movie sociopaths. The plot is interesting enough to hold your attention and the acting is convincing. The cinematography is very nice and holds it together enough to make it all worth while. There are very many nice shots of the streets and countryside of Italy.

The acting is solid and the film well directed except in one place: The photojournalist survives a hail of machine gun bullets by hiding behind a car while taking picture of a bank robbery. Normally this would be OK, except the parts of the car she is hiding behind are the windows!The story is tight and very believable as it is set to the historical background of the capture and killing of Aldo Moro (Italy). The sequence of events is built on a series of coincidental events that demonstrate how you cannot trust anybody if you really want to keep a secret. The film also proves the saying ` if you play with fire you will get burned'.Filmed on location in Italy, the street scenes and interiors add the authenticity of the film.Secondarily, the film also explores the sexual weapon that women sometime use to achieve their own ends, and the unfaithfulness of men that succumb to it so easily. I gave this a 9.