Fave films of the century so far - 2000 - The Way Of The Gun

Imagine Butch Cassidy & The Sundance Kid were around today. Now imagine if they were scumbags. Now you have Parker (Ryan Philippe) and Longbaugh (Benicio Del Toro). A horrible pair of amoral bastards who'll happily kidnap and ransom a pregnant woman, Robin (Juliette Lewis) if they can make money from her.

Sounds horrible right? Wrong. It's the story of The Way Of The Gun and it's amazing. The best film of 2000 and hardly anyone has seen it.

The opening scene.

Film openings don't come much better than that. Yes i know it's filled with misogyny and homophobia but good jesus it grabs you and doesn't let go. Our "heroes" are filth. Unapologetic filth. They never soften throughout and yet somehow you find yourself siding with them because brilliantly the fellows they are up against are even worse. In fact every one here is a piece of work. Everyone. James Caan's bagman brokering the ransom is Parker gone to seed. Taye Diggs as a robotic bodyguard fully committed to saving an unborn baby and not the mother. Scott Wilson as the business man father to Robin's child who sees her as nothing more than a commodity and Lewis as Robin is as we find out, far from the innocent she seems. Everyone we meet is dodgy. Everyone. There's more shades of gray here than in a Dulux catalogue.

It's a 2000 film but it's soul is in the 70's. It's best scene is two men quietly talking in a bar. It's the kind of movie Sam Peckinpah should have had his hands all over. It's a film that's not afraid to assault your senses. It's a story about bad men and the horrible things they do but laced with the modern sensibility of director Christopher McQuarrie. It was released 19 years ago to meh reviews but it's worth revisiting. Time has been very kind to it and star Ryan Philippe has never been better.