GUNMEN

US, 1994, 96 minutes, Colour.
Christopher Lambert, Mario van Peebles, Dennis Leary, Patrick Stewart, Sally Kirkland, Richard C. Serafian.
Directed by Deran Serafian.

Gunmen is an action thriller – with somewhat nasty touches. It begins with a bride being buried alive by her crippled tyrannical husband (played by Patrick Stewart). It is a film about dishonour amongst thieves.

Christopher Lambert portrays the brother of a drug dealer and a money launderer who absconds with four hundred million dollars. Mario van Peebles is a drug enforcement agent who teams up with him in order to recover the money. Dennis Leary, at the beginning of his career as a film star, is a particularly nasty Irish American villain. There is a cameo for Sally Kirkland and for the father of the director, Richard C. Serafian.

The setting is Latin America, has some stereotypic characters, especially military and drug-dealing thugs as well as exotic locations. It is the type of material that is made as straight-for-video action.

1.The appeal of this kind of film? Potential audience? Men? Action fans?

2.The Latin American settings, the resorts, the towns, the ocean? The action sequences? The jungles? Musical score?

3.The title, the reference to Dani and Cole, to Armor and his cohorts? The irony of the boat being called Gunman?

4.The opening, Loomis and his burying his wife, his wanting the money back, commissioning Armor? The irony of Armor betraying him, coming back and burying him alive? Loomis’s character, sinister, British, greedy, crippled? His last words from the grave – and condemning Armor to a similar fate?

5.Dani, in prison, eating the insects, broken out, the ride with Cole, the buddies, uneasy friendship – the pursuit, in the jungle, over the cliffs, diving from planes, getting the deal with the pilot? Shooting each other in the leg, rescuing each other? Trying to find out the name of the boat? Dani as a character, unable to read, shrewd, ignorant, befriending Cole, the clash with Armor, the finale and the finding of the boat? Cole, from the New York neighbourhoods, black, an agent, tough, the memory of his father (and each of them remembering their childhood)? Tough, betrayed by the agents? The shoot-out, the explosion of the boat, the recovery of the money? Their future?

6.Armor, Irish American background, completely ruthless, interrogating the man about the money, shooting him, his wife? His attitude towards the little girl – and the irony of Dani and Cole giving the money to the nuns who took in the little girl? Armor’s gang, tough, betrayals, shooting?

7.The agents, the chief, his seeming to be on the side of the villains – and the irony of the betrayal by his fellow worker, his being shot? The agent, his greed, with Armor, trying to get the name of the boat, going over the balcony?

8.The scene with the gun dealer, the irony of her being an American woman, the deals?

9.Action, violence, drugs, money laundering, betrayal, violence? Nastiness? The reality that this kind of work requires tough agents on the side of the law?