The generically entitled African-American actioneer "Gun" qualifies as a potboiler at best, boasting a solid cast, some tolerable gunfights, profane dialogue exchanges, and atmospheric shots of Detroit. The surprises are few and far between, but "Freelancers" director Jessy Terrero doesn't linger needlessly on the obvious. Payback is indeed a bitch, and nobody can say that "Gun" doesn't punish its perpetrators and reward its heroes. A paunchy Val Kilmer plays Angel, an ex-con whose wife died in a strip club during a shoot-out instigated by Rich (Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson), so Angel turns into a confidential informant for veteran Motor City Detective Rogers (James Remar of "The Warriors") who is trying to bust him. Detective Jenkins (Paul Calderon of "Pulp Fiction") is at Rogers' side trying to take care of business despite budget cuts that the city imposes on the men in blue. Initially, Angel proves his worth to Rich during a night-time deal with an Hispanic gangster, Frankie Makina (Danny Trejo of "Machete"), who tries to pull a double-cross during a deal. Lurking in the background is a big-time mobster, Sam Boedecker John Larroquette of "Blind Date") who is searching for an arms dealer. One of the best scenes has Rich describing an arsenal of hardware to a criminal. The guns that he shows off are pretty impressive, particularly the weapon that fires slug that can penetrate Kelvar as if it were tin-foil. Nothing special but a good way to blow 82 minutes.

Val Kilmer and 50 Cent have been cranking out a lot of direct to video gems these days. They did "Streets of Blood", which I actually really enjoyed, and then did "Blood Out", which got worse. "Gun" seems to be the nail on the coffin in a strange relationship.Val Kilmer plays Angel (what kind of name is that for Val Kilmer?!), a man released from prison after taking the rap for his gun-running friend played by 50 Cent. Angel immediately goes back to his old ways, and helps 50's rising ring come to glory in battle-scarred Detroit, despite the efforts of a relentless detective (James Remar).An interesting plot that covers many bases, ie the gun-control problem in the U.S. (particularly Detroit) as well as the violence guns ultimately cause from their simple existence. I took "Gun" to be a film lightly promoting Gun Control, which is an admirable message from the film's screenwriter 50 Cent.The script is well-written, which is a definite plus. Several of the scenes are very compelling and concerning, especially those with James Remar and John Larroquette. But several other scenes seem thrown in, without any sort of analysis or reason for them being there. One such scene is where 50 tells Val of how guns killed both his parents as a child. The irony is something that I suppose is obvious, but it's not covered well in the film. The scene seems shaky, and doesn't represent all that it could, or is really supposed to.The acting really lacks. Val Kilmer has put on weight, his eyes are lifeless, and his performance here seems forced. He seems to read his lines from a poster behind the camera. But 50 Cent is just awful here. Whatever acting talent briefly blossomed in Streets of Blood had gone under for this performance. I hope he gets better, because 50 has a lot of potential. Though James Remar really makes up for both of them, he's very good and turns in a great role. John Larroquette has a fantastic couple of scenes at the end, and by the end of the film he's the light at the end of the tunnel. Danny Trejo has a small cameo as well."Gun" is a film with a lot of potential but few gears that get the machine moving. If you're willing to look past glaring errors and some wooden acting, you might enjoy it as much as I did.

I only gave this one a shot because of Val Kilmer, I can't pinpoint the reason why I like him, but I do. He's making it very hard to like him these days with crap like this floating around. GUN is a predictable, poorly acted and poorly shot film that throws no punches and plays it completely by the book. Curtis '50 Cent' Jackson wrote it, which tells me one thing and one thing only. He loves guns. The film could have and should have given us some insight on the gun running trade, but no, instead it is more focused on a lame story that involves Jackson running guns for some hot bimbo, who works for someone else, while he gets in her pants. Val Kilmer enters the story when he is released from prison and is looking for some work. He goes and meets Jackson because they met once before a long time ago and Kilmer helped him escape a sticky situation. They act as if they are best friends after they run into each other. I can't tell is Jackson is acting or not, he seems to be playing himself. Kilmer looks rather bored with the work and doesn't try in the least. We finally get to see him act at the very end, but it's way too late in the game for that. Jackson decides to make Kilmer is second in command at one point. Which to me seems odd, why make a guy you've just met your second in command and totally ignore two guys you've known from childhood? It doesn't help that Jackson knows there is a rat in his crew...his crew of like 4 guys, one of which is a new addition. A new white guy addition. Hmm, lets put two and two together here folks. Kilmer is in fact working for the cops, this shouldn't come as a surprise because it's in the trailer. The film tries to surprise us with this fact, but even if we never saw the trailer, anyone who has seen a movie before can tell. There is nothing exciting, fresh or interesting about this film. Even the sex scene is boring. I think Kilmer did this film as a favour to Jackson, when they became friends on the set of another crappy film they did. Not that Kilmer is making the best of movie choices right now, but this is really pushing it.

Police in Detroit are looking for a stolen revolver used in a murder a few years ago. Rich (Jackson) and Angel (Kilmer) are crime partners involved with the distribution of arms. Overall better then I expected it to be, (50 Cent wrote it). We find out pretty early that Rich is the one with the revolver and from then on it gets pretty predictable. For the type of movie it is, I will give it a 6 out of 10, but don't let that deceive you, it's better then Streets of Blood (the last Jackson and Kilmer movie) but thats not saying a whole lot. If you are looking for a top notch, exciting action flick I'd go with A-Team over this one. I will say that this is Kilmer's best movie in awhile, which again isn't saying a whole lot. I give it a C+.