Gunshy_720p(480P)

Some Good Acting Chops are On Display in this B-Movie and the Story is OK but the Thing Lacks Style. It is Remarkable to Add an Intellectual Subplot to the Usual Gangster Clichés like Drugs, Slang, and Swagger. A Gangster Thug who Knows that there is More than just Beatings and Intimidation but hasn't a Clue, is Attracted to a Formerly Successful Writer Suffering the Block and is Hitting the Bottle and Befriends Him for a Cultural Tradeoff. It is All Mediocre and the Dialog is Middle of the Road and the Action is Restrained, but Again there is No Style Awarded to the Characters or the Script. It just sort of Lies there a Good Idea Unfulfilled. The Love Triangle goes No Where and is Contrived and not Thought Out Very Well. Worth a Watch but the Sparks Never Ignite and the Middle Reveal is so Sudden and Unbelievable that the Film Suffers for the Remainder, Never Managing to Recover from that Ill Advised bit of Double-Cross.

Very well done film noir set in present-day Atlantic City, which uses the rather depressing boardwalk locations (off-season) to good effect. The story is rather twice-told but the direction and acting are solid, particularly in the case of William Petersen, Michael Wincott, and Eric Schaeffer.

Okay, it's one of the oldest plot lines in the gangster film genre, but if done well, the "man infiltrates vicious gang and finds himself loyal to the friend who got him in.". The cast is good, William Peterson has the downtrodden man character down pat these days, Diane Lane is serviceable, but the real surprises come by the way of Micheal Wincott finally playing a sympathetic almost good-guy, and Eric Schaeffer for the first time in his life not being annoying on screen as the creepy hitman. Good dialogue, an abscence of bad acting, and dark look that hides its low budget origins. Definitely worth picking up from the video shop.

Nothing not to love about this movie. Everything, acting, soundtrack and plot of Gunshy is a treasure, especially to those of us who grew up on loving film noir. The tough guy Frankie (Michael Wincott) is wonderful! He is tough as nails with a heart of gold. He feels the need to rescue people in return for someone who had helped him in his past, and feels the need to grow intellectually for the woman he loves, another he has rescued. He feels the need for a tutor to educate him. Enter Jake (William Petersen) a has-been writer who lives in a whiskey bottle in the underbelly of Atlantic City. Jake has lost his job and catches his lover with another man. He tells her he knows a place where a loser like him will fit right in.. So he checks in to a seedy hotel in Atlantic City. He becomes so down and out he becomes self-destructive, picking a fight in a bar and getting his butt kicked. Frankie sees something in him worth using and saving. This is movie-lovers TREASURE!

Blew me away. Very impressed. This f-----ing movie GUNSHY has what movies today have totally missed and left behind, GOOD STORY TELLING and GOOD ACTING. It reminded me of the great movies I used to look forward to watching when I was growing up. Great characters and a story that pulls you in and ends with a twist. It's like the filmmakers must have used Casablanca or Mean Streets or something for their ideas, because of the cool film noir feel it had. Story was so involving and you felt like you were in it right there with the characters. I just ordered it the other day from Amazon and the only reason I did was because I love Gangster films. I watched it with my brother and we no idea what to expect and suddenly half way through, I realized I was into it and hooked. Michael Wincott tore it up, he should have gotten some kind of an award or something. All I've ever seen that guy do was play bad guys and they were always interesting but here he was kind of a modern day Humpfrey Bogart here. His performance is flawless, so believable. Diane Lane was so sexier than I've ever seen her and portrayed her character exactly like she lived in Atlantic City and was that girl. Bill Petersen I didn't know very well. I know he;s on that TV show CSI but I don't watch TV.Matter of fact I hate it. Petersen was really good though and right on the money as a guy you love to hate. The writing, the style, the Direction, the whole thing was something to cheer about. Check it out. That is, if you want to watch something that's different and way above the crap we're expected to pay eleven bucks to walk out of.

Everything about this movie is unconvincing, from the acting and dialogue to the action, direction and camera work. The characters are stereotyped and shallow and the story flimsy. The action goes from one predictable event to another without relief from start to finish. The actors are all competent in other films but in this sorry movie their talents are not utilized and dormant. The camera work is only one baby step above home movies and bores to tears. The action is illogical and unmotivated. For example, when Jake, played by William Peterson of CSI fame finds his woman in bed with another man, he barely bats an eye but nonetheless decides to drink himself to death. Scenes occasionally move one to another without rhyme or reason. Time moves unnaturally as one moment someone is unclothed and in the next dressed and in the wrong position based on movement of time. This movie wasn't worth he effort needed to wait through the credits.

source: Gunshy

Actually the idea of a gangster who wants to be educated by that unemployed writer is quite brilliant. It has great irony which could make a fine comedy, a good action or a nice noir about the difference between the 2 worlds of them both. The movie cleverly tried to make a strange romance out of it, with some thrill, yet with a character's analysis that really says a lot about the personality of the contemporary cultured. I love it all together; the simple direction, the effective acting, the bluesy music. It was all about the fallen world of (Jake Bridges), and how this gifted man just loses it when he confines himself faraway beyond the factual humans and things, to become that isolated literate who cut all the *bridges*, and had nothing to present nor to tell. But now the story to till about, or to report about to be precise, is the life of that gangster who's shown as more sincere, honest and ethical! It's that marvelous situation of one conscious brain but inanimate, and one twisted muscle but so active. So, of course, the world will be for the second man, and when that second also searches for goodness, then love too will be for him! It's (Casablanca - 1942) again. But with the famous sentimental exile as a modern cultured who's less idealistic than the gangster. Therefore, the end here was ingenious with (Frankie McGregor/Michael Wincott) and (Melissa/Diane Lane) being together free under the sun - as he deserves her better - and (Jake Bridges/William Petersen) is in jail, metaphorically his own jail of misgivings, writing at last as he finally lived an experience to write about, which came from his late interaction with real people. But again, he was writing about them from the same idiot perspective: "It's funny. People you don't expect to love are the ones you never forget!". Look at his ever dull point of view "People you don't expect to love..", he still treats according to previous concept as they're all lower than him, and he sadly still somehow denies his love for them "you never forget..", even if they're fun to remember, and painful to miss. So what's the motif of that (Rick Blaine)'s ugly new copy?! It's the human journey into the big world just to discover oneself. Thus, the self of that gallant authentic gangster wanted such a good place in real life, so he won love. And that swindler learned loiterer, who wants a book, money or even the same love, perhaps will get everything except love. Why is that?! Maybe because he was loving himself all along, seeing no one except himself. Or maybe because he is the perfect exile cultured who is meaner, and less strong-willed, than the ex-criminal. So what a satire that this movie presents against (Bridges), and his likes, as the real criminal who's too detained and barren to learn or feel anything true and lasting.

Well... I just cannot give this movie more than five stars. Where I am supposed to start from? Presence of Michael Wincott wasn't enough to make a good movie, even watching him losing his nerves and being vulnerable, being a human being and a good guy after all his villain characters he played. First is the lazy atmosphere. There wasn't even one minute of this movie to makes me feel like I am in the game, to feel what characters feels. Yeah, I was about to puke when they shot that guy at the face, but nothing more. Music was like at senior club, all guys looks like past criminals, the story didn't get me either. And on the top of it Melisa, Frankie's girl chose that poorly maintained guy instead of her man? Seriously? Since when fat unshaven drunk guys wearing crumpled t-shirt became attractive? I feel I've lost my time watching this, moreover it was such a hell to find movie that old. There were a few good lines to remember, so it wasn't completely worthless, I guess.