True to the subject matter of Gutshot Straight, the film is a bit of a hustle itself; a Las Vegas-set neo noir in action movie drag.
The title, which a cursory glance on Google reveals to be a poker term, could easily be mistaken for the sort of thing you’d call any movie where many, many people get murdered with guns.
But this is not an action movie, it’s a neo noir. And, as it happens, it’s not a half bad one at that.
Our star is CSI’s George Eads as Jack, a professional gambler who seems to be fairly crap at his job. He’s a shitty father, he’s deep in debt, and his constant wisecracks barely disguise the desperation at his core.
His luck seems to change when he catches the eye of Duffy (Stephen Lang), who offers him $10,000 to do a thing.
He does the thing, takes the money, and everybody goes home happy. The end.
Or, you know, he doesn’t do the thing, and shit goes sideways, and hey, you’ve probably seen a noir before, right?
Give Gutshot Straight credit for knowing what it’s trying to be. It doesn’t get too clever, or try to be any smarter than it actually is. It doesn’t try to shock you with random twists. Like the Jim Thompson novels the movie is trying to ape, it does exactly what it says on the tin: tell the story of a loser who loses.
Which is not to say it’s of Jim Thompson quality. But at least it gets the formula more or less right.
If there’s a flaw in Gutshot Straight (and there are several), it’s that the film takes narrative shortcuts that ultimately tank the ending.
(That and they do Avid fart flashbacks to scenes we just saw five minutes ago, which is a DTV pet peeve of mine…)
Having a fairly solid cast kind of helps, though. Besides Eads and Lang, we’ve got AnnaLynne McCord as the requisite femme fatale, Ted Levine as a pretty bad dude, a blink and you’ll miss it cameos by Tia Carrere and Fiona Dorif, and…two other guys we’ll get to in a moment.
As Jack, Eads makes for a capable lead. He infuses the character with just enough rogueish charm to show why people tolerate him, but not so much that they don’t want to punch him in the face repeatedly.
McCord is game, but her character is so thinly written that she never registers as an actual human being. The plot pinballs her between vixen, victim, and co-conspirator as needed, but neglects to give her any dimension or backstory. Any depth the character has is strictly the work of McCord and not the script.
It’s even worse with Eads’ family, given way too little screen time to make it matter when their lives are threatened. They’re an afterthought, and worse, their very existence makes Jack seem like a somewhat bigger scumbag that he’s probably meant to.
Sketchy characters are a serious problem all around, really, but Stephen Lang and Ted Levine, being absolute professionals, make their bad news archetypes seem way more substantial than they actually are. Lang is deeply creepy but strangely compelling. And Levine is a wonder, by far the best part of the movie.
So here’s the con I referred to earlier: two of the most prominent cast members are Steven Seagal, resurrecting his Out For Justice brogue as the loan shark Paulie Trunks, and Vinnie Jones as his faithful sidekick Carl. (Carl?)
They have MAYBE five minutes of screentime total.
This is a common bait and switch you’ll see in DTV movies. Seagal and Jones are in the movie to provide bigger star power than the dude from CSI, the bad guy from Avatar, and Buffalo Bill are apparently able to. AND their presence, along with an artfully cut trailer, serves to trick the audience into thinking this is a straight up action flick.
Their roles are marginal enough that they could have easily been excised without any damage whatsoever to the story. In fact, their very presence does significant damage to the end of the movie, which we’ll get to in just a second.
It’s a bit of a con, certainly. But on the other hand, it almost seems churlish to complain because Seagal is so entertaining to watch hamming it up.
Seagal’s brief-but-fun performance is just one of the merits of the film. There’s a looseness here, which makes it slightly more fun that a lot of modern noir, which tends to unfold with schematic efficiency. Most scenes have some sort of offbeat grace note that add color and humor to the proceedings, making it feel like more than just another by-the-numbers thriller.
At this point, I’m going to get into full-on spoilers, because I can’t discuss how the movie fails without going into proper detail. If all of this sounds intriguing, feel free to stop here and preserve your sense of surprise. Rest assured, this is on the higher scale of DTV flicks and you’ll probably be entertained if you don’t think too hard.
But if you’re game to get pedantic with me, then by all means, ignore the Angry Warning Head Of Vinnie Jones and read on:
(Vinnie Jones just wants to make sure you know what you’re doing…)
FULL SPOILERS AHEAD
So after Jack accidentally kills Duffy while trying to defend May, Duffy’s brother Lewis shows up and tries to force Jack to kill her. Lewis threatens to kill Jack’s daughter if he doesn’t comply. Desperate, Jack turns to Paulie for help. Paulie gives him a gun and specific instructions to make sure it gets into Lewis’ hands. Jack goes to confront Lewis. Jack and Lewis fight, and Jack drops the gun in the struggle. He knocks Lewis out, but now May has the gun, which she turns on Jack, having suddenly decided to betray him for no discernible reason.
The gun backfires, killing May.
Lewis comes to and goes after Jack again, only to be shot and killed by Paulie Trunks, who shows up out of nowhere with Carl to save the day.
Paulie tells Jack to get out of town and never come back. Jack retrieves some money he hid earlier (the intended payoff from Duffy) and gives it to his ex-wife and daughter before heading out of town. The End.
None of this makes any fucking sense.
For starters, why does May turn on Jack? What is her endgame here? The betrayal makes no narrative sense given everything we’ve seen.
And someone please explain to me: why does Paulie agree to help Jack in the first place? The dude owes him $10,000. Even in the context of his self-confessed fondness for Jack, that’s shows a distinct lack of business sense.
What’s worse, there’s a perfectly good reason for Trunks to help; if Jack simply told him about the hidden money, he could have cleared his debt and still had $40,000 to spare.
But after helping out with the backwards firing gun (a really dicey plan to begin with and maybe Paulie should have oughta told Jack the details), why the hell do Paulie and Carl even go to Duffy’s mansion at all?
“Deus ex Seagal”
So having had his problems solved for him by an outside force, as all good protagonists do, Jack is forced to leave town. But instead of using the money to start a new life, he instead gifts it to his ex and daughter.
All well and good.
Except money was not their problem…
The real problem was Jack and his lack of attentiveness to their daughter. He was an absentee father. And giving them money they clearly don’t need isn’t the happy ending the movie seems to think it is.
END SPOILERS
(You did it! As a reward, please enjoy this photo of Ted Levine thinking about his grocery list.)
Gustshot Straight is a flawed movie, but it’s also better and odder than it could have been, which in the often generic, assembly line world of DTV, is more than enough for a mild recommendation. If you’re into this sort of thing, go for it.
Just don’t expect any snapping wrists…
The Special Features
AUDIO COMMENTARY WITH DIRECTOR JUSTIN STEELE AND COMPOSER KEITH WAGGONER: The moderator, comedian Samson Crouppen, is a bit of an obnoxious dudebro, but this is still a surprisingly entertaining commentary. Steele cops to much of the movie being improvised on set, which does a lot to explain the quirks and plot holes, and why Tia Carrere randomly shows up for five minutes (she just happened to be filming nearby and they figured, what the hell?). It also makes it all the more impressive how good this movie looks; it’s really well-shot.
If nothing else, the commentary is worth a listen to find out who inspired Ted Levine’s look in the movie…
DELETED SCENES: Two brief ones; an utterly disposable moment with a waitress, and a scene from the ending that if it had been included, would have made the ending even dumber and more nonsensical.
BEHIND THE SCENES: Once we get past the standard back slapping (made even weirder because producer/star Eads is the only actor they talk to), Steele gets into interesting territory talking about shooting in Vegas on a low budget and Eads’ commitment to the part. Apparently, many of the jokes and one liners came from him. Also, it’s really cute how excited Eads is that he finally gets to swear in a movie. His face just lights up…
TRAILER: A misleading, yet supremely well edited trailer. Seriously, it makes the movie seem theater-quality.
OTHER TRAILERS FOR MOVIES THAT ALL LOOK WAY WORSE THAN THIS ONE, ALL OF WHICH I’LL PROBABLY WIND UP REVIEWING BECAUSE I’M AN IDIOT: You think I’m joking, but I’m 1/3 there already…
DIGITAL ULTRAVIOLET: No comment.
