Son of a Gun
starring Ewan McGregor, Brenton Thwaites, Alicia Vikander, Jacek Komon, Matt Nable and Tom Budge
written and directed by Julius Avery
Rating: ♦♦◊◊◊
Called “Guns and Gold” in Japan, which is not a bad title, Son of a Gun is an Australian-Canadian-American crime thriller about a notorious armed bank robber Brendan Lynch (McGregor) who escapes from prison with the help of a very young, newly paroled inmate, JR (Brenton Thwaites). The two then go on a raw gold robbing spree. I mean robbing gold directly from a mine, not “processed” gold from a bank, a mint, a jeweler, a museum, or a wealthy mark. Their plan is to sell it to a Russian mob fence, Sam (Jacek Komon). But it all falls apart when Sam double crosses them and tries to cover his connection by killing everyone else involved.
It doesn’t work. Brendan is pretty clever, and ruthless.
JR is young and not as hardened or wise about the life of hard crime/armed robbery as Brendan. JR makes the mistake of falling in love with a girl in Sam’s court, Tasha (Alicia Vikander). Remember what Robert De Niro taught us in Heat (1995, directed by Michael Mann) - in this life of crime never form relationships that you are not willing to walk away from at a moment’s notice. Well, that’s JR and Tasha’s dilemma. But because Brendan is truly a bad man while JR is still innocent, in a way, it is Brendan who gets caught and sent back to prison while JR and Tasha escape both the police and the Russian mob, to live happily ever after. JR escaped with the gold, too, so he’s set for life now. But because he’s so young and innocent he dutifully hides Brendan’s share of the gold hidden so that he can find it if he is ever released from prison (or manages to escape again).
The movie was better than I thought it would be.