The Way of The Gun [DVD] [2000]

From the opening scene of Way of the Gun, writer and first time director Christopher McQuarrie (who also penned Academy Award winner The Usual Suspects) plays with the audience's allegiances: the guys who would be heroes (Benicio Del Torro and Ryan Phillippe) are immediately shown to have qualities which make us hesitate in supporting their cause--they punch women in the face. Del Torro and Phillippe are criminals and chancers. During a trip to a clinic to donate sperm (for a fee, natch), they prick up their ears when they overhear a conversation about a surrogate mother and her very wealthy sponsors. Soon they have kidnapped heavily pregnant Robyn (Juliette Lewis) and made off towards Mexico to wait out the rest of the gestation period. Inevitably, complications arise. What they don't realise is that would-be father, Hale Chidduck (Scott Wilson) is a criminal overlord whose many employees are determined not to see their master lose his money or his baby. James Caan plays Chidduck's right-hand man with avuncular charm. Like McQuarrie's earlier Usual Suspects script, this pacey yarn is full of complex twists and turns, with all manner of visual clues given in a look or a gesture. These subtleties and the squeak-and-you'll-miss-it dialogue keep audience involvement at a high level. The film is also full of beautifully put together set pieces edited with precision and wit--most memorable are a suspenseful low speed car chase and the shoot out at the film's climax. All these elements almost make you forget that you don't ultimately feel very emotionally involved with any of the characters: they're all on the make, but Del Torro was a bit of inspired casting, because there's just something about his eyes which makes you root for him whatever.

On the DVD . "I wanted to violate every rule of the sympathetic character" says McQuarrie in his humorous, irreverent and highly entertaining DVD commentary. The cast interviews included on this disc are disappointingly brief with irritating banner headlines introducing each point the interviewee makes. The biographies are adequate but hardly expansive, and although the director's commentary is highly entertaining, taken as a whole the disc's special features are nothing to write home about. --Emma Perry