Liam Neeson may have repeatedly gone back on his word about retiring from action thrillers – which he probably should looking at how the last few have fared – but his legacy as cinema’s favorite grizzled throat-puncher extends far beyond his own filmography for better or worse, with The Gunman easily falling into the latter half of the equation.
Thanks almost entirely to the success of Taken, the genre was almost immediately swamped with middle-aged veterans deciding they wanted a piece of the pie, but even at that it was a surprise when the oh-so-serious Sean Penn decided that he fancied his chances of undergoing a reinvention as a cinematic badass.
The Gunman – which the two-time Academy Award winner even co-wrote – made no bones about its inspiration by drafting in Taken director Pierre Morel to oversee the carnage, with the esteemed ensemble boasting fellow Oscar-winners Javier Bardem and Mark Rylance, along with Idris Elba and Ray Winstone.
Penn even made sure there was an obligatory shirtless scene to show off his ripped abs and glistening pecs, but evidently became so distracted by his own ego that he forgot to ensure his screenplay was halfway decent. Roasted by critics with a 16 percent Rotten Tomatoes score and shunned by crowds after barely managing to recoup half of its $40 million budget, The Gunman was an unmitigated disaster.
And yet, because it lives on as a B-tier shoot ’em up packing a raft of big names, streaming salvation is always just around the corner. To that end, the dire effort has re-emerged as one of Netflix’s most-watched films per FlixPatrol, even if it’s definitely among the “GeriAction” fad’s weakest.