American Gun

Moral Discussion With Plenty of Complexity
_American Gun_ seems to set people off in two distinct directions: either you love it's subtle anti-firearms message or you run screaming for the hills and feel like the movie falls apart in the last fifteen minutes. Regardless of my own political/moral views concerning guns, I was pulled into this film by two aspects. First, the story was a fresh one and did not (for most of the film) descend into a well-traveled plot. The idea of tracing a gun's history, letting the owner's lives and experiences tell the story of self-defense and homicide, is an original one that made the movie fresh and exciting. This device, the gun, also provided a source for constant change in the movie and kept the movie afloat on its current. The second thing that pulled me in is the powerful final performance of James Coburn, an actor who always succeeds at playing his parts with style, grace, and a deft control of the character. Coburn manages to communicate the pain of a man who loses his daughter to...

Coburn's last film
American Gun is an independent film that was adapted in part from a book that was written about the travels of a gun. I was able to see this movie in the theatre and writer director Alan Jacobs was there to later answer some questions about the film. Jacobs was interested in telling the story of a family that was faced with tragedy, and over this story he also brings in what he thinks is a balanced debate about guns. Though he fails in this, and at times too much effort is put into the gun debate side of the movie, the movie is still a great story.

The story is fairly fresh; a WWII veteran (played by the then 72 year old Coburn) who has had a relatively successful life loses his daughter to a gun. He goes on a long sabbatical in which he traces the history on the gun that killed his daughter. Positive and negative aspects are explored. A poor inner city student shoots his friend then commits suicide with the gun. A young woman who was kidnapped and put in the back of a trunk...

American Gun is more than just a few plot twists....
Just when I think I have seen all the films that could possibly leave me vulnerable, I find this under-rated and powerful DVD. I watched this on Showtime the other evening and it left me in that "wow" fog a good movie can leave behind.

If you start watching AMERICAN GUN and are tempted to stop because Virginia Madsen apparently leaves the storyline early, don't! Not only is her character crucial to the overall plot, James Coburn knocks you out cold with his caring, but angry-at-the-world-and-himself portrayal of a father who loses a family member to a fatal gunshot.

I hesitate to describe too much of the plot since there are unexpected turns and twists that shouldn't be revealed, but I can elaborate on the style and lovely quietness of AMERICAN GUN. Maybe "quiet" isn't the whole truth since various gunshots explode throughout the movie as James Coburn explores the history of one gun that has traveled through many different hands. The loudness is also there when...

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