Friday, December 22, 2006

AMERICAN GUN

AMERICAN GUN is a passable but not great movie about gun ownership in America, with excellent performances by Forest Whitaker, Marcia Gay Harden, Chris Marquette and Tony Goldwyn. Unfortunately the script does not live up to the performances. The movie intercuts the stories of several people who were all changed by a Columbine-like incident at their town's high school. This is a concept rife with ideas, but the screenplay never capitalizes on them. The first act is very slow, with weak dialogue. The second act is very predictable, and so little happens in the third act that the ending pretty much amounts to nothing. I'm surprised that this got an Independent Spirit Award for Best Picture.

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