The Way of the Gun

Character matters

After penning the Academy award winning crime masterpiece, The Usual Suspects, Christopher McQuarrie struggled to get another script adapted. The Way of the Gun was his attempt to return to the crime genre and use that to open doors for him in Hollywood.

Two low-rent criminals, while donating sperm, overhear the clinic manager talking about a woman who is being paid $1 million to carry a surrogate baby to term. They track her down and kidnap her, planning to hold her for ransom. The man paying for the surrogacy is a mob/cartel money man who risks his client's wrath if he uses their money to pay the ransom.

From this point the plot becomes so convoluted I'm not even going to try to recap it. Suffice it to say, the whole caper ends in a shoot out at a Mexican whorehouse, which is a very obvious nod to Sam Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch.

The Way of the Gun is a mess. Even McQuarrie admits it's "uneven." Along with the jumbled plot, there are jarring tone shifts from nihilistic rawness to light hearted banter. The movie can't seem to decide whether it is a hard-boiled crime drama or a Coen Brothers style crime farce. There are some very good moments scattered throughout, which leads me to think that there was a good script to start with, but it was screwed up in re-writes.

But to me, the biggest flaw is the emptiness of the two main characters. I think this movie can serve as an object lesson in how not to write characters in a crime drama.

Conflict, to me, is everything in fiction. In order to propel a story forward you need as much conflict as possible. Most stories feature some goal a character is striving towards, and obstacles to reaching that goal. That is the basic conflict, but writers can add additional levels of friction to heighten suspense, explore character, and engage the reader emotionally. With two protagonists you have infinite opportunities to inject conflict into your story.

In The Way of the Gun, the protagonists Parker (Ryan Phillipe) and Longbaugh (Benicio Del Toro) are introduced in an opening scene where they provoke a parking lot fight by sitting on some idiot's car. His girlfriend, played by Sarah Silverman, unleashes an epic foul mouthed tirade at them, which leads to the pair getting their asses kicked by a mob. The scene is memorable, but do we learn anything about them from this scene? Nope, absolutely nothing. The sad truth is there is nothing to learn about these characters because they are empty shells.

It's hinted that Parker and Longbaugh have an extensive criminal background, but we don't learn much about it until Phillipe spouts a cliched monologue late in the movie about being haunted by his murder of a pedophile. They shoot guns well, but so does every protagonist in a cheap direct to video action movie. There is no meaningful exploration of their pasts to sharpen their characters or provide insight into their motivations.

According to McQuarrie, Phillipe was not his first choice for the character of Parker; the role was first offered to Matthew McConaughey and Matt Dillon. Both turned down the role and Phillipe actively lobbied for the part, due to him needing a role to show himself off as a more serious actor. Sorry, but I didn't buy him in the role as a hardened criminal. He was really more suited for the "reckless younger brother who impulsively offends the mob so his older criminal brother has to intervene to save him" role.

And, man, would I have loved to have seen McConaughey and Del Toro playing off each other.

When you have paired protagonists, it makes so much sense to make them two very different characters. Think of a classic buddy movie. One of the greatest buddy movies of all time, Midnight Run, starring Robert DeNiro and Charles Grodin, featured two very different characters in constant conflict with one another. Conflict between them drove the story forward, generated suspense, and created some very funny scenes.

Parker and Longbaugh, because they were thinly drawn, empty characters had no innate characteristics that created friction between them. There was no point in the movie where you wondered if one of them was going to run out on or betray the other. There were no competing objectives, although the movie played briefly with the idea that Parker wanted to give the baby to the mother and Longbaugh might actually kill her. But it was the briefest and most unbelievable flirtation.

Paired protagonists also opens up the possibility of adding humor. Kevin Hart has made millions off the formula of the goofy bumbler teamed up with a square jawed tough guy. Imagine The Way of the Gun with Steve Buscemi as Parker, bitching and complaining alongside the cool, taciturn Del Toro. Or a quirky Johnny Depp.

Because Parker and Longbaugh are empty ciphers, when the movie climaxes with the Mexican shootout, there is no resolution of character arcs, no critical choices that redeem or elevates either one of them. Bullets fly, the bad guys win, and the pair are left bleeding in the dust, spouting quips.

I believe that character is essential for good crime fiction. There are exceptions perhaps, like puzzle-box mysteries or heist films, but even those forms could be enhanced with deeper character work. Most crime stories are, to some degree, morality plays, where the actions of the characters raise questions about society or fate or human nature. Bonnie and Clyde would have been a glorified B movie without the development of the characters and their place in the world. The Postman Always Rings Twice would have been just another lurid pulp novel without the complex characters of Frank, Cora, and Nick. Think of the intricate and satisfying interplay between memorable characters in The Maltese Falcon.

Is The Way of the Gun a bad movie? I don't think so. It has an excellent cast and they all bring their A games. There are some nice moments and the final shootout is well done even though it's empty.

Unfortunately for Christopher McQuarrie, The Way of the Gun was a bomb at the box office and it would be eight more years before another one of his scripts was adapted.