Written and directed by the Academy Award winning writer of The Usual Suspects, Christopher McQuarrie, The Way of the Gun features some of the same plot elements that kept you guessing in The Usual Suspects, but with a lot more blood and not as much suspense.

Parker (Ryan Phillippe) and Longbaugh (Benicio Del Toro) are two outlaws, living day to day on whatever they can scrounge up, when one day they figure out how they can make a fortune. Kidnap the surrogate mother (Juliette Lewis) to rich parents, and hold the baby/mother for ransom. It seems like the perfect scheme - problem is, the parents are involved in some shady business of their own, and expecting something of this sort (either kidnapping or the surrogate running away), she has 2 body guards stationed with her permanently. Parker and Longbaugh hatch a plan that shouldn't work, but does due to the stupidity of Robin (Lewis). She wants to get away as much as they want to kidnap her, so as she tries to run while everyone is caught in gunfire (which we'll see a lot of), she unwittingly is taken captive by the kidnappers.

So you think you're going to get your standard, run-of-the-mill ransom movie? You're dead wrong. Turns out Parker and Longbaugh have ethics (twisted though they may be) and when everything that could go wrong does, they turn sides, to complicate matters, there's some infidelity within the family of mobsters (Robin's benefactors) which adds to the mess. And it's all solved through the use of guns, and lots of them. The Way of the Gun, as the title might suggest is violent, extremely violent. There's knives, guns, glass, and about everything else that could injure a person and gallons and gallons of blood. Not that I have a problem with that, but after a while, you get used to the blood and it isn't the shock factor near the end that the director would have hoped for.

Similar to The Usual Suspects, McQuarrie uses twists and turns to hide the eventual outcome, which also similar to Suspects is a surprise (although not quite as big). Philippe is at his best in this movie along with Del Toro which make it more than watchable. The script is masterfully done and keeps you interested in the movie and the acting throughout. The pace moved a bit too slow at times, but nonetheless, the movie does its best to entertain. If you can stomach massive amounts of blood and bullets, The Way of the Gun is right up your alley. The acting is superb, but the script pacing seemed to bring the film down. For a suspense/thriller, The Way of the Gun delivers the goods - I'd recommend it.

Genres: Crime, Thriller
Rated: R - http://www.outermost.net/mra/images/wayofthegun.gif
Runtime: 118 minutes
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