Gunmen (1994)

Captivating movie !

Absolutely the worst movie.

Ok... Let's be honest. It cannot be the best movie but is quite enjoyable. The movie has the potential to develop a great plot for future movies

There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

Gunmen is set in the jungles of South America where drug lord Loomis (Patrick Stewart) has hired mercenary Armor (Denis Leary) to find 400 million dollars of his stolen money, while moving the cash one of his men named Karl Servigo loaded it on a boat somewhere ready to sail off after meeting his brother Dani (Christopher Lambert). After Karl dies while being tortured by Armor the only other person who might know where the boat is happens to be Dani, however Armor isn't the only one looking for Dani as New York cop Cole Parker (Mario van Peebles) is aware of the money & breaks Dani out of prison in order to find out where the boat is. The hunt for the 400 million becomes a race against time as to who will get there first...Directed by Deran Sarafian I have to admit to being rather disappointed by this lacklustre buddy buddy action thriller that doesn't have nearly enough action or thrills. The script by Stephen Sommers (who notably later went on to direct high profile fantasy films such as The Mummy (1999), Van Helsing (2004) & G.I. Joe: The Rise of the Cobra (2009)) is a light hearted affair with plenty of banter between the two mismatched leads who inevitably become good friends by the end & a quick succession of one-liners but I thought there was a real chemistry lacking between the two leads, maybe it was Lambert & Peebels performances or the script or the direction but I never warmed to either of them. The villain starts out as a frail Patrick Stewart in a wheelchair (practice for his role as Xavier in the X-Men films?) who is wasted in a small role before Armor decides to run the show himself, having said that Armor isn't the brightest bad guy, why did he kill Karl in the first place? Despite needing Dani & Cole alive he lets his men shoot at them constantly & why kill that woman at the end? At 90 odd minutes Gunmen moves at a decent enough pace but the action is forgettable, the character's don't click & the plot about finding hidden money while avoiding the bad guy's is nothing that original or special & Gunmen doesn't distinguish itself from any other average action thriller.The action mainly consists of a few shoot-outs where the bad guy's can't shoot straight as usual, a few people crashing out of windows & a boat exploding at the end. Gunmen looks quite nice, set in South America the lush green jungles add a little something the close-ups of wrinkled faces & guy's with thick stubble remind me of a Spaghetti Western. There's a topless woman & a bit of blood but nothing excessive.With a supposed budget of about $8,030,000 this had a fair bit spent on it & I can't really see where the money went besides the locations & even then Gunmen was filmed in Mexico not South America. The acting didn't impress me, as I said I thought there was little to no chemistry between Lambert & Peebles which really killed the film dead for me.Gunmen is an average action thriller with the whole buddy buddy mismatched partner thing going on of which there are many better examples out there. Not something I would want to watch again, ever.

Very confusing film, casually acted.The problem here is that there is no moral or ethical center to this film, and what pretends to be ironic humor falls completely flat. It is this irony that should fill the space where the absent ethos is; but since the actors clearly don't care about their characters, why should we.Of course all this would be easier to tolerate if we had a snappy story well-directed - but the fact is, after a half-hour, I realized I didn't know what was going on, and that I really couldn't care less.I remember Van Peebles from New Jack City, how brilliant he was - what happened to him?

This is a very light, entertaining movie for its B budget action format. I think performances by all the big name actors are quite good and even the lesser known actress Brenda Bakke puts in a decent performance. Van Peebles and Lambert have good chemistry on the screen though it was not as easily appreciated in the Highlander movie.I recommend it for light-hearted action fans if only to catch the segment towards the end where they "trade" First-Aid kit back and forth. :)

After watching the original Highlander, I found myself wanting to see a guy I'd never heard of act in some other movies because of the performance he put on in the one I'd seen. Christopher Lambert isn't what I'd call a great actor, he plays pretty much the same soft spoken character in everything, but for some reason that character tends to be entertaining. Gunmen was pretty much an hour and a half of stupid fun and while I'd never nominate it for an oscar or any other accolade, I still think it was worth watching.