Three stories unfold in Aric Avelino's touching and sometimes difficult movie American GUN. Two of them appear to be related to each other even though they occur on opposite sides of the country, the link being shootings at a high school not unlike Columbine (and its aftermath), the link between the three the ever-present, dangerous object that we know of as the gun.
Right at the start, snippets of the high school tragedy unfold amidst newsreels, pictures of the students killed in the massacre, and most distressing of all, the image of students fleeing from a study room, caught on a surveillance camera, as later on, the two armed kids enter the picture. Even more anguishing is the fact that even before they make their visible appearance, they can be heard via their deadly approach: the echoing sound of bullets hitting unspeakable targets.
The mother of one of the killers, Janet, carries much of the emotional weight of the story since from the start, fingers point at her as the reason that her eldest son committed these murders, for which she has now lost her job, and can barely make amends. She agrees to a paid interview -- seen filtered in and out of the news montage -- only because it can allow her to pay for her younger son's education. The terrible irony is, he will now have to go to the same high school that his older son went to because she can't afford another one.
Janet doesn't have any answers as to what lead to her son's rampage. Indeed, with many of these senseless acts, there is no true answer many of the times. She clearly is trying to be a good mother in every way, but is turned into a pariah from her own community who believes evil starts at home and she was half responsible and because she didn't display the correct image of sympathy in her interview, she is now tainted. Marcia Gay Harden portrays Janet as a woman literally coming apart, realizing her younger son is getting into drugs and will not talk to her, wondering if he might also become like his dead brother.
The only person she is able to make a connection to is the police officer caught on duty who was unable to do more to save these students from a horrible and meaningless death. Frank (Tony Goldwyn) is carrying an enormous amount of emotional baggage because he was only trying to do his job: things just got totally out of hand. His character eventually meets Janet's, and in an emotional gripping scene, she completely breaks down. Because after all, as she says, "I just want them to know I feel real bad."
Midway across the country, Carl (Forrest Whittaker) is trying to make things better for the underprivileged. A principal for an inner city high school that has seen very violent days, he has become totally devoted to tutoring those in need and imparting order when it seems that gun violence amongst the students will reach a major high. However, he is neglecting his own duties at home, which is putting a huge dent in his marriage and is sowing the seeds of his son's shame when forced to carry a bag, then a girl's knapsack, to school. And to top it all, one of his top students carries a gun to school for reasons of his own that are later confirmed in a harrowing moment when the kid faces real danger at the hand of a crazy man with a loaded gun.
The more subtle of stories presents Mary Anne (Linda Cardellini), a girl living in Virginia, who seems to be at odd with the family tradition of tending to her father's (Donald Sutherland) store because the store sells none other than guns (to which she is opposed to). An incident where a college friend nearly gets date raped spawns a new interest in Mary Anne to learn how to shoot. One could argue that the message being played is that even when you are surrounded by weapons that can kill, they can also aid in self-defense.
American GUN is a visually poetic movie that I thought didn't preach the message in black and white colors. Yes, guns kill -- but humans are the ones who pull the trigger, and we know that. But they also protect, even when anyone would then argue that it would be better to move into a safer area. However, that is not the case for all of us, and people like Jay (Arlen Escarpeta) -- a young man who is the antithesis of a hood and listens to Johnny Cash -- have to resort to measures to ensure they will make it back home in one piece. That in Jay's world, schools are heavily patrolled (which he understands as when in the initial sequence he places his gun in a cubby hole) is part of the system, and the fact he wants to be school principal and is a sensitive young man says pages about the character.
American GUN never shows the massacre directly, which heightens the horror and anticipates that one or more of these main characters will come near a bullet at one point in the story. Ardolino in this way establishes tension that slowly builds until it blows up like the scenes of violence that occur later in the movie. But he also achieves to have some risky moments pay off as when Whittaker explains the mechanism of a gun to a young boy at the start of the film, or when his character's son comes across a dead prostitute's mangled body. Even a scene in which Mary Anne's friend tries on the right "fit" for a gun is odd... but conveys the never-ending cycle of man against man.
Right at the start, snippets of the high school tragedy unfold amidst newsreels, pictures of the students killed in the massacre, and most distressing of all, the image of students fleeing from a study room, caught on a surveillance camera, as later on, the two armed kids enter the picture. Even more anguishing is the fact that even before they make their visible appearance, they can be heard via their deadly approach: the echoing sound of bullets hitting unspeakable targets.
The mother of one of the killers, Janet, carries much of the emotional weight of the story since from the start, fingers point at her as the reason that her eldest son committed these murders, for which she has now lost her job, and can barely make amends. She agrees to a paid interview -- seen filtered in and out of the news montage -- only because it can allow her to pay for her younger son's education. The terrible irony is, he will now have to go to the same high school that his older son went to because she can't afford another one.
Janet doesn't have any answers as to what lead to her son's rampage. Indeed, with many of these senseless acts, there is no true answer many of the times. She clearly is trying to be a good mother in every way, but is turned into a pariah from her own community who believes evil starts at home and she was half responsible and because she didn't display the correct image of sympathy in her interview, she is now tainted. Marcia Gay Harden portrays Janet as a woman literally coming apart, realizing her younger son is getting into drugs and will not talk to her, wondering if he might also become like his dead brother.
The only person she is able to make a connection to is the police officer caught on duty who was unable to do more to save these students from a horrible and meaningless death. Frank (Tony Goldwyn) is carrying an enormous amount of emotional baggage because he was only trying to do his job: things just got totally out of hand. His character eventually meets Janet's, and in an emotional gripping scene, she completely breaks down. Because after all, as she says, "I just want them to know I feel real bad."
Midway across the country, Carl (Forrest Whittaker) is trying to make things better for the underprivileged. A principal for an inner city high school that has seen very violent days, he has become totally devoted to tutoring those in need and imparting order when it seems that gun violence amongst the students will reach a major high. However, he is neglecting his own duties at home, which is putting a huge dent in his marriage and is sowing the seeds of his son's shame when forced to carry a bag, then a girl's knapsack, to school. And to top it all, one of his top students carries a gun to school for reasons of his own that are later confirmed in a harrowing moment when the kid faces real danger at the hand of a crazy man with a loaded gun.
The more subtle of stories presents Mary Anne (Linda Cardellini), a girl living in Virginia, who seems to be at odd with the family tradition of tending to her father's (Donald Sutherland) store because the store sells none other than guns (to which she is opposed to). An incident where a college friend nearly gets date raped spawns a new interest in Mary Anne to learn how to shoot. One could argue that the message being played is that even when you are surrounded by weapons that can kill, they can also aid in self-defense.
American GUN is a visually poetic movie that I thought didn't preach the message in black and white colors. Yes, guns kill -- but humans are the ones who pull the trigger, and we know that. But they also protect, even when anyone would then argue that it would be better to move into a safer area. However, that is not the case for all of us, and people like Jay (Arlen Escarpeta) -- a young man who is the antithesis of a hood and listens to Johnny Cash -- have to resort to measures to ensure they will make it back home in one piece. That in Jay's world, schools are heavily patrolled (which he understands as when in the initial sequence he places his gun in a cubby hole) is part of the system, and the fact he wants to be school principal and is a sensitive young man says pages about the character.
American GUN never shows the massacre directly, which heightens the horror and anticipates that one or more of these main characters will come near a bullet at one point in the story. Ardolino in this way establishes tension that slowly builds until it blows up like the scenes of violence that occur later in the movie. But he also achieves to have some risky moments pay off as when Whittaker explains the mechanism of a gun to a young boy at the start of the film, or when his character's son comes across a dead prostitute's mangled body. Even a scene in which Mary Anne's friend tries on the right "fit" for a gun is odd... but conveys the never-ending cycle of man against man.