Early on in George Roy Hill'due south Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, following an opening credits montage that features a colorful array of banking company robberies and the passing of fourth dimension with the picture's titular characters, Butch and Sundance find themselves on the 2d floor porch of a brothel. "Y'know, when I was a kid, I ever figured on beingness a hero when I grew upwards," Butch posits to Sundance as they watch the town Marshal discuss some ill-conceived plan towards stopping the two bandits to a large group of people. "Likewise late now," Sundance responds while downing a glass of beer.

Sundance isn't wrong though, and the side by side xc minutes of the film do their best in highlighting the two anti-hero's almost beauteous and attractive qualities. The bad guys become good strictly based on charm and bravado. (Granted, it doesn't hurt to be a ruthless banking concern robber and look like Paul Newman or Robert Redford.)

Christopher McQuarrie's The Manner of the Gun— as well starred a pair of bandits, named Longbaugh and Parker (Butch and Sundance's real life names), looking to unwind and do evil, unlawful things in social club to make the actress buck or extra million. In this movement film, in that location are no heroes. Only thieves and desperados. Where Butch and Sundance were easy to root for, Longbaugh (Benicio del Toro) and Parker'south (Ryan Phillippe) introduction in The Way of the Gun includes Parker punching and bloodying a immature lady (played by Sarah Silverman) in the face after an expletive-filled altercation in a parking lot.

A brawl follows where the 2 leads get bruised and beaten. Phillippe's best piece of acting in the picture show comes immediately subsequently, past way of voiceover work, when he admits that "our options were narrowing downwardly to petty crime or minimum wage." So they choose the more lucrative path: a sperm donation clinic. "A pint of your claret can fetch yous bucks. A shot of come, three grand."

At the sperm depository financial institution—following more offensive-laden linguistic communication from the tip of Parker and Longbaugh'south hot tongues—the pair eavesdrop a telephone conversation mentioning a one million dollar payment to surrogate mother, Robin (Juliette Lewis), for bearing the child of a money launderer, Hale Chidduck (Scott Wilson). It'southward at this point that the film'southward events are set in movement. That elusive "big score" mentioned in the film's opening minutes now finally seems within accomplish. Only there's one man in the fashion — Joe Sarno (James Caan).

Sarno's archway, or at to the lowest degree the first time the audience sees his face, comes by style of a jail cell visit to bail out Chidduck's ii bodyguards — Jeffers (Taye Diggs) and Obers (Nicky Katt)— who let Robin get kidnapped by the film'south two leads.

"I handle Mr. Chidduck's laundry, things similar yous. I brand unpleasant decisions for him, which he can't and never will know. And he sleeps very well," Sarno tells the two mopey, confused looking pair. It'south this type of dialogue, largely from Caan'due south mouth, that makes this movie and so memorable, entertaining, and an anti-Hollywood-picture to kicking. James Caan not but steals the motion picture but he seems to have every other aging, old white homo in the cast with him towards infamy.

Joe Sarno feels similar he comes from the same genealogical strata as Winston Wolf from Pulp Fiction or George Clooney's titular graphic symbol from Michael Clayton — thought he'southward not as dapper looking as Wolf nor as legally trained as Clayton. Sarno's a bagman and as Parker warns Robin: "You can't trust a bagman. They always double-cross you."

He's non wrong — you lot just can't trust a sixty-twelvemonth old guy in a beige jacket and slacks. In that location's something unsettling about Caan's attracting neck scars and his patient gait in the jail scene that brings to light this human being's confidence. His languid, methodical, soft-spoken tone further supports the notion that this human being non only means business but that he doesn't care if he dies, either. "The only thing you lot tin can assume about a broken-down erstwhile human is that he'south a survivor," Sarno explains to Obers, sticking his face upward and close in personnel.

The plot begins to unfold every bit Longbaugh and Parker abscond to a motel south of the Mexican border and demand a $fifteen one thousand thousand bribe in exchange for the exceptionally pregnant Robin. And so Sarno, afterwards discussing the matter with Chidduck and his married woman Francesca (Kristin Lehman) — who we soon acquire is having an thing with Jeffers—pays a visit to the ramshackled cabin to offer Longbaugh ane million dollars in exchange.

The 2 share a cup of coffee and trade war stories, in what is a brief but an indubitably memorable scene between the acting marvels. "They wanna be criminals more than they wanna commit crime," Longbaugh tells Sarno, as if he isn't but describing his own motivations behind the mess he's involved in. Eventually Robin'due south gynecologist, Dr. Painter (Dylan Kussman) comes into the picture and further plot reveals have place.

Information technology's rare to leave a scene of a move motion picture confident that the lead characters might non survive and yet this is the feeling that seeps through when Longbaugh rejects Sarno'south offering and they split means. Walking slowly in reverse directions, the musical score—commandeered deftly by Joe Kraemer—picks up quickly every bit the possibility of an 'ole cowboy-esque gun duel emerges. Longbaugh turns around quickly with his gun fatigued simply Sarno is out of sight, hiding behind one of the cabin buildings. For a story bereft of affable characters, and instead replaced by one where anybody is scheming behind somebody else'due south back, Sarno stands out past way of sheer coolness and bravura.

Other onetime men as well stand up out in the picture show. Chidduck's thievish, rich-guy in it for my trophy wife means don't really add much muster aside for the fact that Scott Wilson plays a neat mean, aging bounder. Abner (Geoffrey Lewis, Juliette'southward real life father), however, does add some humorous quirks to his part. His starting time scene involves Abner sitting at his couch at habitation ready to commit suicide past way of Russian Roulette. A poppy country melody plays in the background as Abner counts his last seconds until a telephone phone call comes in. He covers i ear to drain out the incessant ringing merely finally halts his suicide endeavor to take the telephone call from Sarno and get his next consignment.

McQuarrie humorously pokes fun at Abner'due south jail cell telephone mishaps, in failing to call Sarno when instructed as a event of poor reception or by the fact that he can't quite effigy out how to use the darn thing. The contrast between a grizzled vet ready to take his life and the emergence of new engineering science is a nice touch on. Lewis' glowing bluish eyes and zombie-like state fosters an empowering presence. Sarno and Abner are likely the guys Longbaugh and Parker end up every bit in their later on stages of life--bagmen and hitmen for the wealthy.

Director Christopher McQuarrie, per the director's commentary DVD, had a difficult fourth dimension getting his first moving-picture show made subsequently the Best Screenplay Oscar victory for The Usual Suspects. Accent on his flick beingness made since he found that Hollywood was more intrigued on the prospect of telling him to make their moving-picture show and not further his ain vision.

That acrimony fueled what became The Mode of the Gun—a movie that introduces its atomic number 82 characters by way of a misogynist fueled brawl instead of some conventional backstory prologue. A scene that calls out the homophobia of sperm banks with Parker repeatedly uttering homophobic slurs. And a film whose plot is littered with character-actor empresarios and one-time men who outsmart the immature punks. The grizzled veterans, like Sarno, who deliver quippy ane-liners just and then shoot you in the dorsum when you endeavor to run away. But not without warning.

Where The Usual Suspects relied on, and is remembered for, its final twist, The Way of the Gun'due south twist happens in real-fourth dimension throughout the film. Nearly every scene seems to exude a large "F you" towards hawking producers and Hollywood at large; by and large for better yet sometimes for worse. The noir sensibility of The Usual Suspects certainly seeps its mode into this film in tandem with the Western. Yet this film is much more tactile and handsy, less hyper stylized than the one Bryan Singer conjured up a few years prior.

The Fashion of the Gun was unfairly lumped into the conversation of Quentin Tarantino rip-offs that emerged in droves in the 90s but those films (2 Days in the Valley, Suicide Kings, etc.) were and so concerned with copying or riffing on Pulp Fiction that they lost any sense of charm or originality. Yous tin can't copy greatness, so why not tinker it and go off on your own?

The Way of the Gun features a script whose snappiness is more akin to David Mamet than Tarantino. There are no pulp civilization references in this motion-picture show. McQuarrie wasn't trying to be the other director this film got compared to: Sam Peckinpah. Peckinpah was hyper-stylized at the same time as being bloody violent. The latter shows up hither but the mode is far more than subtle. At that place are a few action set pieces in particular, that specifically make this crime noir tale stand out more than its compatriots.

McQuarrie'due south willingness to try something new instead of mimicking what's been done before happens throughout the film. Outset, when Longbaugh and Parker kidnap Robin from the ii bodyguards while wearing pantyhose over their faces. The scene is shot in dance-like fashion; with some Bob Fosse routine simply with guns, scared faces, and a pregnant woman. McQuarrie's brother, Doug, a former Navy SEAL, helped diagram the schematics of the scene to look legitimate.

Adjacent, a reverse-car hunt—inspired by an episode of Cops that del Toro had seen and liked—takes places immediately post-obit the successful kidnapping. In an expertly edited scene by Stephen Semel, Longbaugh and Parker drive down an alleyway and become out of their motorcar while the car is withal running. This shrewdly forces the bodyguards back into their car and the bad guys speed off. This is followed by more alleyway deadening-motion chasing with the bad guys dragging one pes on the ground as if to bolt out, but they never do.

Lastly, the deciding shootout at the Mexican brothel is shot so tactfully; the guns sound authentic; effortlessly matching the believable visual aesthetics of Sarno'southward henchmen. These action ready pieces think a time when shootouts felt existent rather than exaggerated for effect.

The Manner of the Gun doesn't come unblemished. Juliette Lewis, who was cast in many roles similar to this (merely ameliorate) in the 90s, is used just as a prop. She bandies about a very meaning breadbasket that seems to subsume from whatever grapheme traits she possesses. The scenes where she is given speaking lines, in her feeble attempts at coaxing Parker to assistance her run gratuitous, for example, add very little to the story. Her scenes either play out as a soap opera or a high-octane drama, with little in between.

Ryan Phillippe equally Parker is outmatched by nearly everyone in the cast, but especially by the handsome, amorphous-eyed Benicio del Toro. Though Phillippe'due south perfunctory endeavour at pulling off a Marlon Brando emphasis, by way of a cocked chin, isn't ideal it also doesn't ruin the film. His commitment to the bit is laudable, at to the lowest degree.

For all its faults, McQuarrie'south ability to write arresting, witty dialogue ("adjudicate!") goes a long style. As does a ceaseless curiosity as to what happens next, something that worked well in The Usual Suspects, besides. Equally the cross and double crosses brainstorm, and the plot becomes more convoluted as a result, that state of unease stays present and engaging. Casting Taye Diggs, a formidable Blackness actor, in a offense genre mash-up (noir + western) that has largely obviated Black characters up until that fourth dimension and even in the nowadays mean solar day, is also a pleasant surprise. Plus that tactile dust and those ponderous scenes more than closely resemble Sidney Lumet or John Sturges than they do Sam Peckinpah. The two-shot scenes and the set pattern palettes and lighting (thanks to Dick Pope) peculiarly bring to mind Sturges' piece of work.

Information technology's not then much that the flick subverts the crime genre and then much every bit it overturns how the viewer expects the story to go and who its protagonists should be. To cast 2 of the hottest young actors in Hollywood as the lead renegades was an easy pick. To brand them as unlikable as Redford and Newman were charming, was difficult. The hardest decision, though, was making the point that, despite the advent of technology (i.e. jail cell phones), the youthful exuberance, and reckless carelessness, it is still a land for old men. Youth may win out, one day, eventually. Simply not quite yet.

The Way of the Gun ends in a fashion that is much less hopeful than Butch Cassidy, which leaves its determination more cryptic for the audience. A conclusion that also feels fitting for a film where heroes are deficient and each character is more repulsive than the next. Since anointing Tom Prowl every bit his right hand man in activity movie installments (Jack Reacher, Mission: Impossible), McQuarrie never quite returned to these insular, low-fi roots. Undoubtedly, and oddly, information technology can be harder to get a $20 meg movie made than a $100 million one. Which makes his directing debut hither, in The Style of the Gun—with all its backstory absent, abhorrent violence, and anti-Hollywood vibes—all the more impressive and worthy of recognition.

is a lawyer, Alanis Morissette enthusiast, reader of hard boiled crime novels, and a Coen Brothers devotee. His writing has been featured in Pittsburgh Orbit, Jedidah Ayres' blog, and on his website at www.thethirdtake.com.