Year of the Gun dvd movie.|
Year of the Gun buy bestselling dvd movies, videos find reviews, ratings, prices |
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List Price: $9.95 Our Price: $9.95 Features • Closed-captioned • Color • DVD-Video • Letterboxed • NTSC In Theaters : 01 November, 1991 DVD Release : 21 December, 1999 |
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Year of the Gun description In 1978 Italy, anarchy is in the air as the Red Brigades keep the country in a state of terror. Reporter David (Andrew McCarthy) moves blithely among the mayhem; after all, he's an American citizen and untouchable, right? When the manuscript for his political novel, patterned after the Brigades, falls into the wrong hands, it draws the unwelcome attentions of the Brigades, the police, and aggressive American photojournalist Allison (Sharon Stone) and lands David in hot water. Director John Frankenheimer took an overworked plot and made the best of it, though McCarthy is a bit puny as David. As would be expected in a Frankenheimer effort, though, the action segments shine with lithe editing and Frankenheimer's instincts for composition and camera work. The riots and chase segments make use of Rome's cityscape, calling to mind Euro-thrillers of the period. Stone is compelling as the foolhardy photographer, with some torrid sex scenes with McCarthy. Though not on a par with The Manchurian Candidate or Seven Days in May, Year of the Gun is a decent action film that goes a long way toward capturing the political and social chaos that was '70s Italy. --Jerry Renshaw |
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| ♥♥♥♥♥ | One of Frankenheimer's better later films - but a frustrating DVD |
| The latter years of John Frankenheimer's career were mostly a downward spiral with only occasional rare steps in the right direction, but Year of the Gun is certainly one of his better late entries thanks to a terrific premise. A less annoying than usual Andrew McCarthy is an American writer in Rome secretly working on a Day of the Jackal-style novel about a Red Brigade plot to kidnap Aldo Moro, only to end up in their bad books in a very big way when it turns out to be a virtual blueprint for the real-life crime they're on the verge of committing. Sharon Stone, in the best of her pre-Basic Instinct films, plays the pushy freelance photo-journalist after his story who gets down to her trademark horizontal gymnastics (sans icepick this time) for good measure, while no-one else is what they seem to be.
The plot creates its own momentum, leaving Frankenheimer free to evoke the chaotic Italian political landscape and the shocking violence of the Red Brigade's outrages in a series of convincing set-pieces. The action is well-handled - especially a bank getaway and a prolonged chase sequence - the story engrossing and for once the ending catches you off-guard. Not up to the standard of Frankenheimer's earlier classics, this is still a superior thriller, though the lack of English subtitles for the Italian dialogue is a bit frustrating - they're not to be found on the UK DVD or the widescreen German DVD (which cuts one sex scene from the US and UK versions but includes it as a deleted scene) either. |
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