Son of a Gun (2014) [Blu-ray]
Action | Crime | Drama

Tagline: Everyone gets what they deserve.

After breaking out of a maximum-security prison, Brendan Lynch (Ewan McGregor), Australia's most notorious criminal, enlists 19-year-old JR (Brenton Thwaites) to accompany him and his crew on a gold heist that promises to deliver millions. However, as things start to go wrong, a deadly game of cat and mouse ensues.

Storyline: Locked up for a minor crime, 19 year old JR quickly learns the harsh realities of prison life. Protection, if you can get it, is paramount. JR soon finds himself under the watchful eye of Australia's most notorious criminal, Brendan Lynch. But protection comes at a price. Lynch and his crew have plans for their young protegee. Upon release, JR must help secure Lynch's freedom, staging a daring prison break. As a reward, he's invited to join the crew as they plan a gold heist that promises to deliver millions. However, as things start to go wrong, a deadly game of cat and mouse ensues. JR finds himself unsure of whom he can trust and on a collision course with his former mentor. Written by Anonymous

Reviewer's Note: Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman, March 17, 2015 -- The phrase "son of a gun" can be either mildly dismissive or mildly amused, but its etymology, while still somewhat uncertain, is one way or the other a fascinating relic of a bygone age. There's a wealth of sometimes contradictory but interesting information online about this oft used but seldom really thought about phrase. Some researchers tie the idiom to long ago naval life, when long tours of duty meant that women squirreled onto a voyage sometimes gave birth on board ships, relegated to an area in between the ships' gun arrays, so that their childbirth wouldn't interfere with daily tasks (and/or battle). A variant of this theory simply states that the "gun" in the idiom is a referent to the (supposed) father's occupation as a naval officer or soldier. Other etymologists trace the phrase back even further to a time when swords rather than guns were the preferred weapon, at least for certain chainmail wearing gallants, making those who actually owned guns looked at disparagingly. An even more fanciful, if somewhat more contemporary, "theory" (evidently based on a joke that a bunch of dunderheaded people took to be real) posited an unexpected pregnancy after a bullet traversed through a man's scrotum and into a woman's uterus, where conception took place. Julius Avery's 2014 crime opus Son of a Gun takes a somewhat similarly bifurcated approach toward its title and its meaning, with both a "familiar," probably derogatory, connotation, along with a somewhat more subtextual reference to the pseudo father-son relationship that springs up between a teenager named JR (Brenton Thwaites) and an older, hardened criminal named Brendan Lynch (Ewan McGregor). Son of a Gun features a viscerally disturbing first act which documents JR's matriculation into a frightening world of prison and the unhinged residents of the facility. Unfortunately, the film ultimately collapses under the weight of too many convenient plot machinations, as well as its tendency to forsake some finely attuned character beats in favor of more traditionally hyperbolic action elements.

The first of several overly contrived plot points occurs fairly early on in Son of a Gun, after an obviously nervous JR snakes through the venomous corridors of an imposing Australian prison attempting to avoid eye contact with any number of vicious seeming inmates. JR is nonetheless obviously fascinated by Lynch, though it's not initially apparent why. Lynch is obsessed with a chess game, and after he makes a move, JR seizes his chance and informs Lynch that that particular move will guarantee a checkmate (against Lynch) within three moves. Without much more than that somewhat fanciful motivating factor, Lynch becomes an unlikely protector of JR, especially after JR himself attempts to protect his addled cellmate from being sexually abused by a much larger predatory inmate.

Lynch's protection comes at a cost, of course, and that repayment is what actually generates the bulk of Son of a Gun's increasingly improbable plot. Once JR is sprung from stir after six months, he is sent by Lynch to meet Lynch's long distance chess partner, a nefarious crime boss named Sam (Jacek Koman). Sam sets JR up in a rather unexpectedly luxe apartment, in anticipation for some upcoming "work" about which JR is still largely ignorant. Soon enough there's a gorgeous girl in the mix, when an intermediary between Sam and JR named Tasha (Alicia Vikander) enters the picture. By the time JR is hijacking a helicopter to engage in what turns out to be just the first of several increasingly improbable plot machinations, it's obvious that any attempt to keep Son of a Gun "grittily realistic" have fallen by the wayside.

For a while at least it seems like Son of a Gun is going to traverse potent if familiar territory with regard to JR coming to terms with his life in stir, replete with its threats and peculiar opportunities. And indeed the first part of the film follows this tack fairly rotely, recalling any number of prior outings that cast an untested naif into the shark infested waters of an "industrial" prison. But if writer-director Julius Avery has a sure hand on the claustrophobic paranoia that attends to much of JR's early existence in jail, the helmer can't quite deliver himself from hoary and ultimately silly metaphors like chess standing in for, you know, life. The chess game that initially brings JR and Lynch together, if contentiously at first, becomes a running image throughout the film that does little other than pointlessly call attention to itself.

But the film takes a rather sharp left turn once JR is out of prison and the full ramifications of his debt to Lynch are revealed. But even here the film is not through with overwrought plot (and maybe even genre) twists, as the film veers precariously once again from what initially seems like a heist or caper mode into something else entirely. It's as if Avery had one of those old "one from Column A, one from Column B" menus and couldn't quite decide on a choice, and so simply decided to include everything.

What helps the film surmount its structural hiccups is a set of intensely visceral performances, chief among them McGregor, who brings an almost palpable viciousness to the role of Lynch. Even in relatively quiet dialogue scenes, Lynch seems primed to explode at any given moment, and McGregor evinces an almost atavistic, animalistic ambience that keeps the viewer slightly on edge. Thwaites has a somewhat less florid row to hoe, but he manages to deliver a compelling portrait of a kid first seeking nothing more than protection, and then falling under the sway of so-called "bad influences," only to discover maybe he likes it that way.

Son of a Gun ultimately never really works, but one can't fault it for having a lack of ambition. While Avery the writer still struggles with overly precious metaphors and a certain reliance on overheated dialogue as well, as a director he paces the film well and certainly knows how to manage actors effectively. McGregor and Thwaites are ultimately the main reasons for watching Son of a Gun, though, offering a chilling portrait of two souls who prove that "family" dysfunction doesn't necessarily require being related in the first place.

Son of a Gun simply careens too wildly from tone to tone and plot point to plot point to ever develop any momentum. But the visceral intensity of the performances of McGregor and Thwaites helps to offset some of the self-inflicted wounds generated by writer-director Julius Avery. While increasingly preposterous and ultimately defeated by its own grandiose aims, the core relationship between JR and Lynch makes Son of a Gun an often compelling viewing experience. Technical merits are generally strong, and with caveats noted, Son of a Gun comes Recommended.

[CSW] -1.2- The script was so poor and had so many plot holes that I was never able to suspend my disbelief. The acting was reasonable but the plot line was so unbelievable that it negated all of the acting. Even if you can ignore the Grand Canyon of plot holes, even then, only those who are diehard fans of the actors will get some enjoyment out of this film.
[V4.0-A4.5] MPEG-4 AVC - No D-Box motion codes were available at the time of this rental although they are available now.


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