McQuarrie's first and last time in the director's chair

I’ve made a lot of ridiculous statements in my time. I tend to flower my language with grandiose statements thick with in-the-moment emotions that later become hard to defend. It’s part of the charm for which people hate me. Usually I can defend my assertions, but every now and again I have to eat a little crow and admit I as wrong. Today was almost NOT one of those days, which is why I am going to be talking about a movie from 2000 called The Way of the Gun.

When this movie, written and directed by the screen writer of The Usual Suspects, Christopher McQuarrie, first came out, I was a huge fan.  Immediately after seeing it, I told a few of my friends that it was better than Reservoir Dogs.  It was an impassioned comment that startled the people that heard it.  Some of my friends ran to the theaters, only to shrug their shoulders after seeing it and declare that I was an idiot. I defended my opinion for a long time, until I finally had to concede that I was wrong and apologize for my initial, exuberant reaction.  Recently, I put this movie back into the dvd player to try and remember why I thought it was so great, and you know what?  It’s pretty freaking fantastic!

Christopher McQuarrie had wanted to avoid doing another crime film after the success of The Usual Suspects in fear of being typecast.  He was convinced by his friend, Benecio Del Toro, to not just do another crime movie, but to do one that took all the risks, and refused to follow any conventions of story-telling.  Tasked with this, McQuarrie set out to make The Way of the Gun.

There's always free cheese in a mousetrap.

Right from the very beginning we see that McQaurrie took Del Toro’s challenge seriously.  The introduction of our two main characters, Parker (played by Ryan Phillippe) and Longbaugh (played by Del Toro) goes against all of Hollywood’s usual cliches.  We understand immediately that they aren’t GOOD guys.  I don’t want to spoil anything here, in case you haven’t seen this cult film yet, but I will mention that I enjoyed Sarah Silverman’s cameo, as well as the way the movie is doing more then simply introducing you to the main characters.  The second time you watch this movie you can recognize that this altercation in a parking lot is actually an allegory for the whole rest of the film, including the physical positions the characters end up in.

Parker and Longbaugh are criminals.  Their names are the actual names of another famous crime duo and movie, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (another fun fact, the setting for the finale of The Way of the Gun is the exact same place where they filmed the finale of that classic Newman/Redford film.)  You aren’t subjugated to a life story about these two, but rather are simply told they are bucking the system and setting out on their own to seek out the fortune they know they are owed. Through this quest, they become embroiled in a kidnapping plot that is far more complex then they could have ever expected.

McQuarrie challenges the norm by placing a pregnant woman, played by Juliette Lewis, into extreme peril at the hands of our anti-heroes.  Since we know these guys are willing to hurt women, we have to assume that this woman would be an acceptable loss as well, which heightens the sense of danger.  As the movie moves along, the plot thickens as it is revealed who the parents of this surrogate baby actually are, and the movie delights in giving us the perfect serving of information about each of the supporting characters.  If there is one place where this movie really shines it’s in the amount of information we are given about the players in this game.  There aren’t any characters I feel like I know too little or too much about, and that helps me care about where each of them end up as the credits roll.

The best scene in the movie

One scene stands heads and shoulders over the rest, and continues to be one of my favorite movie conversations of all time.  In the middle of the kidnapping, James Caan shows up as an older, wiser criminal.  He meets with Del Toro at a seedy Mexican bar where they discuss their lives of crime. The entire scene is glorious, and is only hurt by how short it is.  I could have listened to these two talk for days.

There are, unfortunately, a few things that hurt the movie, a couple of which are hard to talk about without revealing important spoilers about the plot.  The first is Ryan Phillipe’s delivery of the lines in the sperm bank scene.  His dialogue comes pouring out too fast and furious, sounding more like a Kevin Smith flick then is good for it.  The scene is saved by the segments with Del Toro, who delivers his lines with suave perfection, but Phillipe nearly ruins his character here.  The second is the meandering plot of the wife, which is teased so perfectly throughout the movie as she slips in and out of the background, letting us know that she is a bigger part of the story then we have been led to believe, but when we are never given a conclusion to that plot we feel cheated. The other issue I have comes at the very end, where I think the need to conform to Hollywood’s expectations led to them conceding to an ending that wasn’t deserved.  After seeing the movie, if you’d like to hear my thoughts, hit me up on my email: jitterbug@talkingship.com

All in all, this is a great, great movie.  It slipped in and out of theaters with hardly anyone noticing, and the poor reaction by audiences effectively killed McQuarrie’s hopes for a grander career.  That’s a shame, as this movie is far better then most of the movies Hollywood churns out and I think McQuarrie could have become one of our great American directors.

But it’s not better than Reservoir Dogs.