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Christopher McQuarrie
The Way of The Gun is a wild take on the crime caper,
reminiscent of Quentin Tarantino but also of the Blues Brothers.
Car chases and shootouts are warped until they become parodies.
The film is mainly a gallery of deranged, amoral characters, who are
trapped into a very thick jungle of doublecrossings.
The pregnant woman is the only "normal", human, honest person.
Everybody is doublecrossing everybody else.
Often, the movie sinks into "film noir" moods that suddenly slow down
the action.
But the plot is a little too twisted, sometimes annoyingly twisted.
Another problem is that the director chose to tell the story from the
perspective of the two punks who happen to start the train of events,
but they are unlikely protagonists (the pregnant woman herself would have
been a far more interesting protagonist).
The director still has to learn how to "narrate" a story, especially
a convoluted one like this.
A pair of career criminals, "Parker" and "Longbaugh", have a big fight against
an entire crowd in front of a night club.
They are losers and drifters.
At a sperm bank where they are trying to raise some money, they overhear a
conversation about an old millionaire, Hale, whose seed is being brought to
term by a surrogate mother, Robin, instead of his young wife, Francesca.
He is so paranoid about this that
he keeps the surrogate mother under constant armed guard.
The two punks decide to Kidnap the mother and blackmail the millionaire.
The kidnapping is a little clumsy, and the two are initially outsmarted
by the two professional bodyguards. But the woman does not follow
the instructions of the bodyguards and delivers herself to the kidnappers.
All's well that ends well.
Except that the bodyguards do not give up. After a shoot out that leaves
two other bodyguards dead, the kidnappers drive away followed by the bodyguards.
This time they outsmart them.
They kidnap the woman's gynecologist, Allen, who tells them that the millionaire
is a shady businessman who is used by organized crime to launder money.
An old man is playing russian roulette by himself, but the phone rings. It's
Joe, the millionaire's right-hand man and a veteran criminal, who needs a
favor. The old man
sets aside his suicidal plans and accepts to help him.
Longbaugh and Parker drive her into Mexico.
Allen is back at the millionaire's and tells him what happened.
Allen and Francesca hate each other. Allen is the millionaire's son.
He has saved Allen
who needed money after some kind of failure in his medical profession
and now Allen owes
his absolute obedience. The bodyguards also despise Allen.
One of the kidnapper calls and gives directions how to deliver ransom.
He wants Allen to do it and also to induce labor.
But Joe is already there and negotiates with him, dealing with him
as a friend.
One of the bodyguards is Francesca's lover. But Francesca also really
wants the baby, she calls it "my baby".
The other bodyguard would like to doublecross the millionaire: kill
the two punks and keep the money.
Joe fails to convince the kidnapper, walks away and tells the old man,
who was hiding, to keep following them.
The woman is terrified and the other kidnapper consoles her.
She confesses crying that she did it because she needed money.
But the baby is really hers. The father is no less than Allen himself.
She has cheated the millionaire. She thought it would grow in a rich family.
The millionaire tells Joe that he doesn't trust him with this case because
it would be a "conflict".
Allen will bring the money and deliver the child, and the bodyguards will
make sure everything goes fine.
Joe is the only one who is really loyal to the millionaire.
He doesn't trust the bodyguards and doesn't trust Allen.
The bodyguards, in turn, don't like him, but are puzzled why saving the child
would be a "conflict" for him.
The nice kidnapper has doubts about taking a child away from his mother.
The other one is ready to kill him.
But the woman has grabbed a gun and called the police.
And they can only leave.
The Mexican police arrives, the bodyguards and Allen arrive, and
Joe's friend, who has seen everything, comes out of his hiding.
They all argue, until Parker and Longbaugh, who are on a roof, start
shooting. The police officers and one bodyguard are shot. Allen and the other
bodyguard take Robin away. The old man takes the police car and follows them.
Parker and Longbaugh torture the wounded bodyguard to find out where
the girl was taken.
They are in an abandoned mission used as a brothel.
Robin is in pain. Allen begs the bodyguard
to let him take her to a hospital. The bodyguard is only interested in the
child. Robin screams that it is her baby.
The two punks arrive, armed with machine guns.
Joe meets his old friend, who was wounded in the shootout and is dying,
but didn't give up following the girl.
The punks and the bodyguard are shooting in the mission.
The punks finally find the room where Allen is operating on Robin,
"protected" by the bodyguard. Allen kills the bodyguard and keeps operating.
The punks walk out and start a duel with Joe and his men, who have left the
bags with the ransom money on top of the fountain. The punks are wounded
but keep going for the bags of money. Finally, Joe comes out and stops them
by shooting them in the legs.
Robin comes out and Joe reveals to be her father (that's the "conflict").
The two punks are left in the sand, bleeding perhaps to death, talking to
god.
At home, Francesca tells the millionaire that she is pregnant (probably
of the dead bodyguard).
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