Gunmen (1994) Dimension/Action-Comedy RT: 97 minutes Rated R (violence, language, nudity, sex, drug references) Director: Deran Sarafian Screenplay: Stephen Sommers Music: John Debney Cinematography: Hiro Narita Release date: February 4, 1994 (US) Cast: Christopher Lambert, Mario Van Peebles, Denis Leary, Kadeem Hardison, Patrick Stewart, Brenda Bakke, Robert Harper, Sally Kirkland, Richard C. Sarafian, James Chalke, Humberto Elizondo, Andaluz Russell, Tamara Shanath, Deran Sarafian, Christopher Michael, Ana Luisa Pardo. Special appearances by Big Daddy Kane, Kid Frost, Rakim, Eric B., Doctor Dre, Ed Lover, Christopher Williams. Box Office: $3.4M (US)
Rating: ** ½
Gunmen is pure B-movie trash and doesn’t try to hide it. It was released by Dimension Films, the 90s version of New World Pictures for a little while. It stars Christopher Lambert (Highlander) and Mario Van Peebles (Exterminator 2) as mismatched partners looking for $400 million in stolen money. Since it was stolen from a drug kingpin (Stewart, Star Trek: TNG), they technically aren’t breaking any laws. At least that’s how it works in the action movie universe.
It should be noted that director Deran Sarafian (Death Warrant) pays homage to some of the greats which is a nice way of saying he steals stylistic motifs from great filmmakers. Gunmen has the grime, grit, sweat and machismo of a Sam Peckinpah movie (e.g. Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia). Some of the shots are reminiscent of Sergio Leone’s spaghetti westerns. The opening shot of a fly crawling on Lambert’s unshaven face while he sits in a South American jail is right out of Once Upon a Time in the West. In one scene, our two heroes jump off a cliff just like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.
The only original idea in Gunmen is also the most ludicrous. Not only are we asked to believe there’s a rap club in the middle of the South American jungle, we’re also expected to believe that high-profile rappers like Big Daddy Kane and Eric B. & Rakim would perform there. Is there a primitive tribe that likes this style of music?
Just seconds after Lambert’s character Dani eats the offending fly, the wall of his cell explodes and he escapes with the help of Cole (Van Peebles), a DEA bounty hunter looking to avenge the death of his father, a New York cop. He needs Dani’s help finding the $400 million belonging to wheelchair-bound drug kingpin Loomis (Stewart) who we first meet as he’s burying his wife. Never mind that she’s still alive while this happens. He sends his main henchman O’Malley (Leary, Judgment Night) to find and retrieve his money. This means getting to Dani because it was his (late) brother who stole the money. It’s on a boat in some harbor. Cole and Dani each have information the other needs- Cole knows the name of the boat; Dani knows its location- so they’re forced to work together even though they don’t trust each other. All the while, O’Malley and his team try to stop them.
Gunmen doesn’t have the most complex plot in the world but it kind of stands out because it’s so damn weird. Sarafian tries to interject comic interplay between the two leads which makes for an uneasy fit in a movie so obviously modeled after Peckinpah’s work. The chemistry between Lambert and Van Peebles feels a bit awkward and forced which makes it odd that they reteamed the following year in Highlander III: The Final Dimension. Comedian Leary makes an okay bad guy but his line readings frequently sound like he’s doing stand-up. Kadeem Hardison (Dwayne Wayne from TV’s A Different World) shows up as a jive-ass pilot-for-hire. Stewart camps it up nicely in his few scenes. He could have gone more over-the-top but that he plays this role at all shows he’s a good sport.
The action scenes are okay. I wish there had been more violence and blood in Gunmen. Apparently, the studio trimmed about five minutes of the harder stuff prior to its release. They wanted to make it safer and more audience-friendly. For who? It’s rated R. Kids aren’t supposed to see it anyway. It still has a fair amount of action. It’s set in an unnamed South American country where life is cheap and criminals rule the roost. It gives Gunmen something of a macho edge. It’s what you call a guy’s movie. The only major female character (Bakke, Under Siege 2) is a gun-toting bad ass. Sally Kirkland (Best of the Best) shows up as a gun dealer for a single scene.
In the end, Gunmen is a throwback to the kinds of cheap pictures released by New World in the 80s. Not a lot of thought went into the plot which is functional at best. It was written by Stephen Sommers who would go on to direct The Mummy (1999) and its 2001 sequel The Mummy Returns. Gunmen has cheap production values; it’s not very well made. The editing is sloppy. Sometimes it’s too dark to tell what’s going on. Well, that’s B-moviemaking for you. It’s certainly not the worst of its kind but I think they could have done better.
