Simply put, 9 Bullets is a strange movie. It features an inconsistent protagonist, some dead-end plot mechanics, and an apparent lack of understanding by writer/director Gigi Gaston of how to balance its surprisingly disjointed tone. On one hand, the movie appears to be a road-trip comedy-drama hybrid, featuring a grizzled, stoic, no-nonsense action heroine (played by Lena Headey, no less) and a precocious kid under her protection. On the other, a ruthless crime lord is after the child, meaning there are some genuinely serious stakes in this story. You wouldn’t know that, though, since other than a few instances of the crime lord’s goons being sent after the pair and sparking a shootout or two, the entire enterprise has the pacing of a pleasant walk through the park.
Let’s start with Headey’s Gypsy – and not only for the groanworthy moniker used by the former burlesque dancer-turned-amateur bodyguard. As the story starts, and for a surprising duration of the incredibly time-sensitive mission on which she finds herself, Gypsy is writing a book about her experiences on and off the stage, a manuscript that her publisher needs pronto. Interrupting her precious writing time like the insensitive jerk he is, Sam (Dean Scott Vazquez) witnesses the simultaneous shooting deaths of every member of his family, after his dear and departed dad decided to skim some money from his crime-lord boss. Now, must be delivered to an uncle thousands of miles away from harm.
That is the set-up for the lengthy road trip, during which Gypsy makes it plainly clear to Sam that he is a bothersome insect stuck to the bottom of her proverbial shoe. To her credit, she does get the kid out of numerous jams under the watchful eye of Jack (Sam Worthington), the crime boss, who also happens to be her old beau. He finds out that the entire family didn’t die in the attack he ordered, and Gypsy makes some empty promises and desperate improvisations to spare the kid his parents’ and siblings’ fate (Gaston, meanwhile, somehow manages to contrive a reason to include a non-zero number of steamy, if unmotivated, sex scenes between the two attractive actors). It’s all in an attempt to protect the kid, she says, even as she takes long pauses to crank out a few chapters of her book.
Other plot devices kick in, too, each of them less believable than the last: The woman and the kid find refuge with Lacey (Barbara Hershey), a shotgun-toting badass who ends up serving basically no purpose within the plot. A minor car accident reveals the presence of an electronic tracker and leads to a narrow escape, complete with the culprit of the accident disappearing into thin air without any explanation. Jack’s girlfriend, Lisa (Emma Holzer), takes matters into her own hands, appearing at random whenever Gaston feels like inserting her to fire a few bullets and exit the screen. Least believably, though, is when Gypsy and Sam steal a car, only to discover Tamsin (La La Anthony), who is also a burlesque dancer and a car thief, asleep in the backseat.
It quickly becomes unclear whether Gaston wants us to take this story – a heightened one about a young boy escaping certain death after his entire family is wiped out – seriously enough to accept the contrivances and conveniences of the rest of the plot, the stubborn grouchiness of its heroine and the sleepy pacing. 9 Bullets is as lazy as thrillers come and as confounding as it is dull.
Photo courtesy of Screen Media Films
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