‘GUN’ DOESN’T HIT THE MARK
Just when Jane (Natalie Portman) has a comfortable new life with her new husband (Noah Emmerich), after being tormented by a violent gang, her enemies return. With her family threatened, she has to turn to her ex-fiance (Joel Edgerton) for help. It sounds good on paper, but we’re not sure this Western will deliver.
Jane Got A Gun opens in wide release Jan. 29.
‘JANE GOT A GUN’ TRAILER REVIEW BY METRO CREW
NICOLE: My first thought, without any prior knowledge of the film, was, “Good for you, Jane. You get that gun and defy gender stereotypes. I bet you’ll own that gun and kill lots of bad dudes with it.” My thoughts after watching thetrailer: “In no way can I imagine Natalie Port-man riding a horse OR shooting a gun.”
PAIGE: I agree that Natalie Port-man isn’t quite believable here as a lady gunslinger. The lady action niche in Hollywood is pretty solidly held by Charlize Theron, Jessica Chastain, Emily Blunt and Lena Headey, so Portman is just this little waif that looks like a strong gust of wind will blow her away.
JAIMIE: Natalie Portman always just falls flat for me. Sometimes, like inBlack Swan, it works because she is playing a cold, emotionless character. You know, HERSELF. Other times, it just makes already cheesy George Lucas lines sound even more… special.
CHRISTINA: I’m not the biggest Natalie Portman fan. Like, I usually think she is good — she’s great in Closer and Black Swan — but I don’t know. Meh. That said, it looks like she actually might deliver on this whole action-star thing. I bought it.
JAIMIE: I’m a little disappointed in how this movie doesn’t take better advantage of the plot. I mean, it’s a Western with a female lead. There could have been a million ways this could have played out more interestingly, and yet, I can’t bring myself to care.
PAIGE: The plot is a little murky. Apparently, Jane has to get revenge … with her gun. For … what, though?
CHRISTINA: Agreed. It’s like all of a sudden she is on a killing rampage, but why? Maybe she just snapped.
JAMES: There’s a brief snippet of people taking off in a hot air balloon. It’s set to action music. Is this the beginning of the much-ballyhooed-but-ill-conceived hot air balloon chase?
JAIMIE: I’m pretty sure this is the film that has been a long time in the making, with a bunch of people set to play a role or even to direct the film, before dropping out of it because … of reasons I can only assume. But if the Internet is correct, then it sounds like a lot of disorganization and a lot of unnecessary drama — you know, Hollywood. I feel like that has overshadowed the film and taken away from what maybe at one point — like way back in the day when the idea was just a little thought — could have been an interesting film.
PAIGE: This movie has had quite a saga of problems involving the director quitting, the distributor bailing out, and pretty much every A-list actor deciding, “Nah, this is a hot mess.” This includes names as illustrious as Michael Fassbender, Jude Law and Bradley Cooper before finally, finally Ewan Mc-Gregor decided to do Natalie Portman a solid (maybe based on theirStar Warsbro days?).
CHRISTINA: It seems that the release delay was in part caused by the initial distributor going bankrupt. And then the original director left on the first day of principal photography. That seems strange; I wonder what happened. And then Jude Law was like, “I don’t want to do it without said director, k bye.”
JAIMIE: Maybe, what happened is that everyone realized that Jane was using her gun for boring things. And so they abandoned ship. I mean, I would.
