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And the coolest actor would be Benicio Del Toro, also returning after a questionable comedy (of sorts -- Terry Gilliam’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas) to star in another film distinguished by a mixed trendy/classic cast. He and Ryan Phillipe play extremely creative, murderous career felons who kidnap a painfully ripe surrogate mother (Juliette Lewis) not knowing about the baby’s rich parents’ extensive criminal ties. A world-weary wiseguy (James Caan), his equally jaded suicidal buddy (the excellent, too-infrequently-seen character actor and storyteller Geoffrey Lewis, who dispenses low-keyed comic relief), two ruthless bodyguards epitomizing the phrase “emotional detachment” (Taye Diggs, also making a welcome departure from his usual harmless persona, and Nicky Katt from Boiler Room), and a critically flawed obstetrician (Dylan Kussman, who’s hardly a household name, but you might remember him from Dead Poets Society) contribute to byzantine subplots that ensure every scene has plenty going on.
What distinguishes The Way of the Gun from so much other post-Tarantino apish noirism is first-time director Christopher McQuarrie’s intricately woven, almost poetic script (he won the 1996 Best Original Screenplay Oscar for The Usual Suspects). He refuses, despite a body count well into double digits, to make the violence look overly stylized or glamorous: no two-handed gun-fu with pirouetting slo-mo victims, or shooters who magically walk through a withering hail of bullets unfazed. I mean, just because the climactic shootout takes place in a Mexican brothel doesn’t mean it has to look sexy, right? B
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