AnnaLynne McCord | Through the Shattered Lens

Angel (Val Kilmer) has just been released from prison and he’s returned to the hard streets of Detroit. Hooking up with his old friend Rich (50 Cent), Angel gets involved in a gun-running operation.

Unfortunately, it’s no longer easy or safe to sell guns in Detroit. The police are cracking down. Rival gun dealers are trying to take out a competition. A raid at a club leaves a dealer dead and a huge power void in Detroit’s criminal underworld. When it becomes obvious that the police have a snitch in Rich’s crew, Rich’s girlfriend (AnnaLynne McCord) suspects that it’s Angel. Can Rich find the snitch without having to betray his best friend? And does Angel have secrets of his own?

First released in 201o, Gun was the third film that Val Kilmer made with 50 Cent and it’s apparently their only collaboration that Kilmer didn’t mention in his autobiography. It probably should be noted that Val Kilmer doesn’t look particularly happy in the movie but that actually works for his character. Angel has just gotten out of prison, he’s mourning his wife, and he’s found himself right in the middle of the type of violent situation that could lead to him going back to prison. In many ways, Angel feels like he could be a version of Heat’s Chris Shiherlis. It’d easy to imagine that maybe Chris changed his name after escaping Los Angeles. He became Angel and he found a new partner in the form of Rich. Unfortunately, Detroit is a lot uglier than Los Angeles, Rich is no Neil McCauley, and Michael Mann’s not directing. Kilmer’s performance is not bad. Even in a low-budget movie like this, he still did his best.

That said, the film is centered around 50 Cent. 50 Cent plays Rich. 50 Cent provides the music. 50 Cent produced the film, along with Randall Emmett, a producer who largely made a career out of getting faded stars to appear in B-movies. (He’s best-known for producing the many of Bruce Willis’s final films.) As Rich, 50 Cent gives a rather stiff performance. It’s not so much that he’s not convincing as a street smart gun dealer as he’s just not very interesting to watch. There’s a predictability to his performance, one that is reflected in the songs that appear on the film’s soundtrack. How many rap songs about making money and shooting people can one listen to before admitting that it all gets boring after a while?

In the end, the most interesting thing about Gun is the number of familiar faces who appear in small roles. James Remar plays a cop. Paul Calderon, the bartender from Pulp Fiction and the traitor from King of New York, plays a detective. John Larroquette and, somewhat inevitably, Danny Trejo both make appearances. Perhaps most oddly, Mike “Boogie” Malin, the winner of Big Brother All-Stars, plays an ATF agent. I should mention that, in real life, Boogie Mike and Dr. Will Kirby (winner of Big Brother 2) had a friendship that widely mirrored the friendship between Rich and Angel. I doubt that factored into his casting. That would be giving Gun to much credit.

Gun was not a particularly compelling film, though it did win some authenticity points by actually being shot on location in Michigan. That said, Val Kilmer gave a better performance than perhaps the material deserved. Val is definitely missed.

On Saturday night, I watched the latest Lifetime original film, Watch Your Back!

AnnaLynne McCord is stalked in Watch Your Back. I love the old guy trying not to laugh.

Why Was I Watching It?

I was not in a very good mood on Saturday night, largely because of the fact that I knew I would be losing an hour later that night. Seriously, Daylight Savings Time sucks! What better way to cheer myself up than be watching the latest Lifetime movie?

What Was It About?

Sarah (AnnaLynne McCord) seems as if she has it all. She has a successful career in advertising and an assistant (Darla Taylor) who views her as being a role model. She has a new husband named Kurt (Mark Ghanime) who is an aspiring novelist. Her stepdaughter even calls her “mommy.”

However, one day, Sarah starts to receive photos that someone has been taking of her. However, since the photos are sent using flashchat (not relation to snapchat), the evidence that she’s being stalked is deleted minutes after she sees it. Soon, she realizes that someone has been breaking into her house. Her husband, meanwhile, is tricked into thinking that there’s a bomb in the mailbox.

As Sarah grows more and more paranoid, it starts to become apparent that this is not your average stalking case. Instead, it all links back to a shadowy organization of professional assassins. And, from there, the film just gets stranger and stranger…

What Worked?

So, here’s the thing with this movie: For this first 78 minutes or so, nothing about this film seemed to be working. Sarah came across as being unlikable and stubborn. Her refusal to call the police made it difficult to have any sympathy for her. Add to that, she never seemed to be particularly concerned about anyone who got hurt over the course of the film. At one point, she chased a totally innocent photographer into oncoming traffic. Needless to say, the photographer ended up getting struck by a car and appeared to be on the verge of death. Sarah didn’t seem to feel much guilt about this and I found myself thinking, “Are we actually supposed to like her?” Meanwhile, Kurt came across as being such a wimp that I pretty much found myself not caring about either of them.

But then, during the final 10 minutes of the movie, Watch Your Back goes completely and totally batshit crazy. The film’s “big” twist is so over-the-top and ludicrous that, in its own strange way, it actually manages to redeem almost the entire film. Of course, that doesn’t mean that the twist makes any sense but it certainly is memorable.

And, once the twist is revealed, AnnaLynne McCord’s performance actually starts to make sense. Suddenly, you realize that McCord’s strange performance was actually what was needed to set up the film’s strange ending.

What Did Not Work?

There have been a lot of wimpy husbands in a lot of different Lifetime films but it’s hard to think of any that were as totally wimpy as the character of Kurt. Kurt was nice and sensitive but he was pretty much useless in a crisis. Don’t get me wrong. I love sensitive guys but sometimes, you just need a man to actually be a man.

Also, I could have used an update on what happened to that photographer after Sarah nearly got him killed. The film just kind of abandoned him.

“Oh my God! Just like me!” Moments

Needless to say, I related to Julie (Darla Taylor), the much put upon administrative assistant. As I watched Julie deal with an increasingly neurotic supervisor, I found myself thinking, “I know that feeling.” When Julie has to deal with Sarah’s paranoid glances and condescending tone, I nodded and said, “Been there.” And when, at the end of the film, when Julie got to deliver a kick ass one liner, I thought to myself, “I better remember that, just in case I ever find myself in the exact same situation.”

Lessons Learned

Since Watch Your Back took place in a weird, batshit crazy universe that had absolutely no relation to our real universe, I can honestly say that I didn’t learn a thing from this movie.