Gunmen
Gunmen (from Weird and Wonderful II: Fifty More Cult Films by George Hughes, available from freefall-productions.com on 02/11/20)
1993 / US-Mexico / 97 minutes
“I wouldn’t do that. You’ve got candiru in there! Spiny little fish that like to swim up your penis! It’s true! I know a guy who lost his entire penis from one! It was horrible!”
Director: Deran Sarafian / Screenplay: Stephen Sommers / Director of Photography: Hiro Narita / Music: John Debney / Production: John Davis, John Flock and Laurence Mark for Davis Entertainment / Cast: Christopher Lambert (Dani Servigo), Mario Van Peebles (Cole Parker), Patrick Stewart (Loomis), Brenda Bakke (Maria), Denis Leary (O’Malley).
After his unexpected international breakout success with Highlander (1986), French actor Christopher Lambert briefly became one of Hollywood’s unlikeliest leading men. Having somehow landed the part of an immortal Scottish swordsman despite his dangerously limited eyesight and even more limited English, Lambert had perhaps even more impressively made the character his own and had a great time in the late ’80’s and ’90’s partying and shagging his way across America funded by roles in quickly produced but serviceable action movies.
In contrast to Lambert (who did his serious and arty films back in Europe before and after his cut price action hero phase), Mario Van Peebles spent the same era alternating between violent B movies and more worthy, respectable projects like his own New Jack City (1991) and Michael Mann’s Ali (2001). Meeting on this brilliantly entertaining modern day version of The Good, The Bad and the Ugly shot in Mexico in 1992, Lambert and Van Peebles became friends despite their wildly different backgrounds and it’s their real life relationship that makes the film.
Gunmen begins with small-time conman Dani (Lambert) getting busted out of a South American prison by bounty hunter Cole (Van Peebles) and the two of them embarking on a search for $400 million in stolen cartel money. Loomis, the drug lord who has lost the missing cash is played by Patrick Stewart in a rare bad guy role between seasons of Star Trek: The Next Generation (apart from playing a halfarsed villain in Richard Donner’s halfarsed thriller Conspiracy Theory in 1997, Stewart wouldn’t get another character this nasty until Green Room).
Loomis is still trying to run things from his villa (it looks like Stewart was only on set for a couple of days) but is losing control of his henchmen as his empire falls apart around him. He sends two assassins to recover the money, the femme fatale-ish Maria (Brenda Bakke, a great looking supporting actress who also shows up in L.A. Confidential and got her start on an early Next Generation episode) and “Irish” heavy O’Malley (Denis Leary, a comedian big at the time in the US now best known for nicking a lot of Bill Hicks’s act).
Dani and Cole are then pursued through generic “South American” locations by Maria and O’Malley as they try to find the $400 million. In reality, Gunmen was made near Puerto Vallarta near Mismaloya where The Night of the Iguana was filmed (one of the film’s producers, John Davis, had worked on Predator which was also shot nearby).
It’s evident throughout that Lambert and Van Peebles are having a great time and their characters’ often improvised- looking interactions elevate Gunmen above the usual mismatched buddy adventure stuff by being very real (Lambert would later get Van Peebles the part of his next immortal opponent in Highlander III).
What immediately sets this film apart for those only familiar with the original Highlander or Lambert’s French films is how much dialogue he has here. By this point fluent in English, he provides most of the film’s humour and demonstrates his rarely seen comic timing as Dani tries to bullshit his way out of increasingly dangerous situations. This is not a part that the 1986 Lambert could have played as, in contrast to the brooding and internalised Connor MacLeod, Dani is nothing but a talker who ends up having to repeatedly rely on Cole to protect him.
For unconfirmed reasons, Gunmen remained unreleased for over a year after it was finished. It’s most likely that this was due to concerns about the violence levels and it’s eventual rating as versions of varying lengths were submitted in different countries. It’s still occasionally shown on late night TV but a fully uncut version in the correct aspect ratio is impossible to find on home video as it seems one was never officially released.
The Region 1 DVD is the most complete edition available but is cropped to 4:3, cutting off the sides of cinematographer Hiro Narita’s (another Trek connection- he also did Star Trek VI) brilliant jungle photography. What’s especially irritating is that they seem to have done the panning without the scanning- in a shot of Dani and Cole in a jeep for example, the picture’s zoomed in so far between them that neither of them can be seen.
Director Deran Sarafian went on to do Terminal Velocity (1994) with Nastassja Kinski and Charlie Sheen before disappearing into TV work but, if you can find it, Gunmen is a great little ’90’s caper not enough people have seen. It’s also guaranteed to have you looking up candiru as a matter of some urgency.
1993 / US-Mexico / 97 minutes
“I wouldn’t do that. You’ve got candiru in there! Spiny little fish that like to swim up your penis! It’s true! I know a guy who lost his entire penis from one! It was horrible!”
Director: Deran Sarafian / Screenplay: Stephen Sommers / Director of Photography: Hiro Narita / Music: John Debney / Production: John Davis, John Flock and Laurence Mark for Davis Entertainment / Cast: Christopher Lambert (Dani Servigo), Mario Van Peebles (Cole Parker), Patrick Stewart (Loomis), Brenda Bakke (Maria), Denis Leary (O’Malley).
After his unexpected international breakout success with Highlander (1986), French actor Christopher Lambert briefly became one of Hollywood’s unlikeliest leading men. Having somehow landed the part of an immortal Scottish swordsman despite his dangerously limited eyesight and even more limited English, Lambert had perhaps even more impressively made the character his own and had a great time in the late ’80’s and ’90’s partying and shagging his way across America funded by roles in quickly produced but serviceable action movies.
In contrast to Lambert (who did his serious and arty films back in Europe before and after his cut price action hero phase), Mario Van Peebles spent the same era alternating between violent B movies and more worthy, respectable projects like his own New Jack City (1991) and Michael Mann’s Ali (2001). Meeting on this brilliantly entertaining modern day version of The Good, The Bad and the Ugly shot in Mexico in 1992, Lambert and Van Peebles became friends despite their wildly different backgrounds and it’s their real life relationship that makes the film.
Gunmen begins with small-time conman Dani (Lambert) getting busted out of a South American prison by bounty hunter Cole (Van Peebles) and the two of them embarking on a search for $400 million in stolen cartel money. Loomis, the drug lord who has lost the missing cash is played by Patrick Stewart in a rare bad guy role between seasons of Star Trek: The Next Generation (apart from playing a halfarsed villain in Richard Donner’s halfarsed thriller Conspiracy Theory in 1997, Stewart wouldn’t get another character this nasty until Green Room).
Loomis is still trying to run things from his villa (it looks like Stewart was only on set for a couple of days) but is losing control of his henchmen as his empire falls apart around him. He sends two assassins to recover the money, the femme fatale-ish Maria (Brenda Bakke, a great looking supporting actress who also shows up in L.A. Confidential and got her start on an early Next Generation episode) and “Irish” heavy O’Malley (Denis Leary, a comedian big at the time in the US now best known for nicking a lot of Bill Hicks’s act).
Dani and Cole are then pursued through generic “South American” locations by Maria and O’Malley as they try to find the $400 million. In reality, Gunmen was made near Puerto Vallarta near Mismaloya where The Night of the Iguana was filmed (one of the film’s producers, John Davis, had worked on Predator which was also shot nearby).
It’s evident throughout that Lambert and Van Peebles are having a great time and their characters’ often improvised- looking interactions elevate Gunmen above the usual mismatched buddy adventure stuff by being very real (Lambert would later get Van Peebles the part of his next immortal opponent in Highlander III).
What immediately sets this film apart for those only familiar with the original Highlander or Lambert’s French films is how much dialogue he has here. By this point fluent in English, he provides most of the film’s humour and demonstrates his rarely seen comic timing as Dani tries to bullshit his way out of increasingly dangerous situations. This is not a part that the 1986 Lambert could have played as, in contrast to the brooding and internalised Connor MacLeod, Dani is nothing but a talker who ends up having to repeatedly rely on Cole to protect him.
For unconfirmed reasons, Gunmen remained unreleased for over a year after it was finished. It’s most likely that this was due to concerns about the violence levels and it’s eventual rating as versions of varying lengths were submitted in different countries. It’s still occasionally shown on late night TV but a fully uncut version in the correct aspect ratio is impossible to find on home video as it seems one was never officially released.
The Region 1 DVD is the most complete edition available but is cropped to 4:3, cutting off the sides of cinematographer Hiro Narita’s (another Trek connection- he also did Star Trek VI) brilliant jungle photography. What’s especially irritating is that they seem to have done the panning without the scanning- in a shot of Dani and Cole in a jeep for example, the picture’s zoomed in so far between them that neither of them can be seen.
Director Deran Sarafian went on to do Terminal Velocity (1994) with Nastassja Kinski and Charlie Sheen before disappearing into TV work but, if you can find it, Gunmen is a great little ’90’s caper not enough people have seen. It’s also guaranteed to have you looking up candiru as a matter of some urgency.
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