PLOT: A former burlesque dancer turned author (Lena Headey) discovers a second chance at life and redemption when she rescues her young neighbor who witnessed his parents brutally murdered.
REVIEW: While marketed as an action movie, 9 Bullets often feels more like a road trip drama. One character is taking another to a predetermined location, and along the way, they connect in unexpected ways. Well, unexpected for anyone who has never seen a road trip movie, but still.
Lena Headey stars as Gypsy and gives a decent enough performance but the writing really fails her. Her motivations feel like they’re changing every second she’s on-screen. They try to present this strong independent woman, but then she does stuff like sleep with her insane ex-boyfriend for what just feels like sexual exploitation. And her character’s transformation from burlesque dancer to author feels like the screenwriter had a Diablo Cody fetish.
One thing 9 Bullets has going for it, is the pace. Everything moves very quickly, never staying on one scene too long. But it also makes the characters extremely inconsistent from one moment to the next. The child goes from uncontrollable sobbing to having intellectual curiosity that feels very out of place. Then Lena is constantly switching between caring about this child to just wanting to go on a cruise and finish her book.
There’s even a moment where the kid runs away, and it seems like Gypsy is going to leave him. Then the next scene, he’s back with her, without explanation. This strange editing is present throughout the film. Every time you think its ramping up for some kind of action, they just kind of sidestep it in order to get to more traveling. A group of bad guys are always in hot pursuit of the pair, but there’s never any tension whenever they’re nearby. Gypsy is effortlessly able to escape the situation before any suspense can even start. It’s a huge misstep for the film.
Don’t get me wrong, in a movie like this, you don’t need the story or the performances to wow. So long as it’s entertaining, then the job is done and we definitely receive plenty of fun moments to warrant a slight liking. Unfortunately, any film that involves a child is really reliant on their performance in order to succeed. Dean Scott Vasquez tries his best but fails to connect in any meaningful way besides causing a lot of frustration. He’s involved in a very shoehorned Crypto coin storyline that is extremely hard to watch without intense eye-rolling.
The real standout of the movie is Sam Worthington who feels like he’s in a completely different movie than the rest of the cast. I expected scenery-chewing but he’s much more subtle and not in it nearly enough. He provides some of the only tension in the entire film. And he seemed to really relish being a Texan.
Another fun, but all too brief role, is that of Barbara Hershey. She’s one of the major highlights and brightens the movie up, but she’s gone as fast as she arrives. This brings me to La La Anthony, whose role as Tasmin is something I still can’t make sense of. She’s a hustler who crumbles under pressure the moment it comes and then disappears from the film entirely.
Coming from writer/director Gigi Gaston, there’s not a lot to compliment outside of the beautiful cinematography. There’s a general lack of connection between tone from one scene to the next and it often feels like the movie doesn’t know what it wants to be. Most scenes feel very self-contained and rarely flow well together. By the time the ending happens, it’s hard not to just roll your eyes at the absurdity going on.
While the trailer promises an almost John Wick-level action movie, what we’re given is decidedly more low-key. The action amounts to mere minutes and the majority of the film is spent dealing with melodrama between a child and someone who doesn’t want to be a mother. Based on what we received it feels like we were sold a false bill of goods. So while this may have 9 Bullets in the gun, most of them are blanks.
9 Bullets is now In Theaters and On-Demand!