End of a Gun

• Directed by Keoni Waxman
• September 23, 2016

A former DEA agent living in Paris gets involved with a British woman when he shoots the man beating her up.

Right away End of a Gun goes hard in establishing that our hero Michael Decker (Steven Seagal) is not only super sexy by having some bar skank stripper leaving desperate messages throwing herself at him but includes him in a montage of strippers while driving around Paris to get that sexy action vibe. It gets even rougher when you realize the woman he is paired with in this movie is the right age to be his daughter. A 36 year age gap peeps.

Decker meets Lisa Durant (Jade Ewen) when he sees her getting smacked around by her boyfriend/boss outside his club. Not sure if Decker had plans to go in or was passing by while out on a drive but one thing leads to another and Decker kills the guy leading to Decker and Lisa getting flirtatious before some hearty boinking.

The problem here as with so many other Seagal movies is that the actor does not get how sad he looks in the fictitious situation. There reaches a point in every actor’s career when romancing (especially if it is just physical) the young woman on screen just doesn’t work. Most actors figure it out at some point. John Wayne made a note of it in one of it Brannigan and I think Roger Moore understood it by the time he did A View to a Kill. Steven Seagal not so much.

Decker is a former DEA agent and Army soldier forced to retire under dubious circumstances without a pension. It’s hinted that he lives off of the money he steals when he kills drug dealers and other assorted criminals. Why is there not a target on him? If he was killing and robbing people and this information was readily available (which it sounds like) the criminal underworld would be going after him.

If you watch enough of his movies, you’ll notice Steven Seagal uses a couple of attempted catchphrases regularly. I know I’m starting to pick up on it. None of them are good and maybe it is sign of envy of other action stars that have oft repeated lines by fans. The one he uses here is “I love the fuck out of cookies.” Considering his current physical state he is unintentionally mocking himself.

Lisa is not a good femme fatale or whatever you want to call her. Ewen cannot act sexy or intelligent. Her character does not even feel dangerous when she is being conniving. Her entire performance waffles between entitled twat and a Karen about to demand to see the manager. As an actress she is best suited to be the inconsequential skank on the arm of the greasy criminal.

Florin Piersic Jr. as Gage is perhaps the brightest spot in the whole movie. He is threatening without being cartoonish. The actor handles humorous moments without undermining his threat level as a character. It is a shame he did all that he did in a movie that got so little attention. You know this is all just his job and all these issues he is having while trying to get through a day at work are ticking him off.

Most issues here though land at the foot of Seagal. He has burned so many bridges and wasted so much goodwill that this derivative thriller (which is good even though it is derivative) went nowhere. The script is not bad with the general story working even if there are some issues like the presence of Mr. Vargas who adds nothing to End of a Gun other than pushing it to a theatrically acceptable 96 minutes.

I give director Keoni Waxman points for attempts at style in this one. There’s a little more effort on his part to dress up the usual Steven Seagal schtick. There are interesting camera angles along with some stylized transitions ripped off from better productions. It helps to elevate what is rather pedestrian. The action scenes harken back to Seagal’s days of glory. They are well choreographed and exciting. It’s the casting that’s lacking. Any number of other actors replacing Ewen and Seagal would have improved things.

I had no real sense of Seagal or his character’s motivations. He just kind of existed. His main drive was saying maybe get some money and boinking the hot chick who was clearly going to doublecross him. If that was all then that is pretty shaky to go killing everybody that is in your way in the streets of France.

End of a Gun is so very close to being something special. It never gets there largely because of Steven Seagal and the actress he’s paired with. Not unwatchable but weak.