Christopher McQuarrie directs Benicio del Toro, Ryan Phillippe and James Caan in this neo-noir / neo western thriller where two drifters kidnap a woman pregnant with a mob financier’s surrogate baby inside her.

“The only thing you can guess about a broken down old man is that he is a survivor.”

“I think a plan is just a list of things that don’t happen.”

“The longest distance between two points is a kidnapper and his money.”

My personal favourite post-Tarantino piece. The action is extreme, walloping and makes moves like a chess genius playing himself. McQuarrie proves himself a talent beyond Bryan Singer’s shadow and one only needs to witness the last three Mission: Impossible movies to know this man does intense set pieces and shorthand world weary machismo like nobody else. The Way Of The Gun is an ardent love letter to a form of gunplay movie that never really existed. Maybe Peckinpah’s The Getaway is the only predecessor that feels a piece with it. Broken old crims, untrustworthy partnerships and border town nihilism. I think people get hooked up on how juiced up the first and third act are that the middle section where everyone angles to betray everyone else and a whole series of long games are hinted at… well it throws your casual viewer. Should we have a stake in the hidden motivations of the bland bagman played expertly by Caan, or his suicidal henchman played with pathos by Geoffrey Lewis or Jennifer Lewis’ complex waddling MacGuffin? Once $15 million is in the middle of a Mexican stand off, who can you trust? Is your partner showing signs of humanity to a pregnant grifter? Are your mercenaries in sharp suits sharper than you need them to be? It all resolves itself in the most painfully violent, orgasmically calculated finale in independent cinema.

9

Perfect Double Bill: The Usual Suspects (1995)

I write regular features about live comedy for British Comedy Guide here https://www.comedy.co.uk/people/bobby_carroll/features/