GUN SHY (2017) Dir. Simon West

GUN SHY is a good natured, clever adventure caper with lots of fun and gags and Antonio Banderas as you have never seen him before!

by Corina J Poore

Turk Henry (Antonio Banderas) is an ageing Rock Star totally out of touch with reality, living an extravagant lifestyle. His mega-platinum band have now split and Turk Henry is persuaded to take his wife on luxury holiday to Chile, where she is snatched by a disorganized group of fishermen buccaneers who are trying to raise funds to buy a proper boat. Fans of the band themselves, they even know the album tracks and sing along when they realize they have inadvertently captured Turk Henry wife, the lovely Olga Kurylenko. There is a life journey for Turk Henry to experience, as he is forced to act to save his wife.

This is a movie that is fun, with good comic timing, and imaginative stunts. The leads carry the comedy well without falling too far into farce. Ben Cura, as the attractive young Juan Carlos, leader of the kidnap gang is convincing, as is his motley crew. Martin Dingle Wall as the ‘fixer’ holds his own, hilariously, against the American agent who is trying to alter the situation to suit himself. It was always clear to me that a handsome man could lose all his hair and still be as attractive as ever, whereas someone challenged in the good-looking department, could have all the hair you wanted and it would still not make much difference. In GUN SHY, we have it both ways, Antonio Banderas is almost drowned under an overgenerous head of hair and he still manages to look as dishy as ever!

This is not a film for deep soul searching although there are moments when Banderas does manage to convey genuine emotions that add a level of depth and work well in the story. It is a delightful comedy action adventure with colour, music, and some witty dialogue and nicely observed detail. You cannot help but warm to the characters as they each pull in different directions for their own personal reasons. The local llamas have a role to play all unto themselves, then you have the young lad (Emiliano Jofre) whose sole purpose in life seems to be based on selling more beer, and the American Agent (Mark Valley) who is so desperate to get posted to a more exciting place that he also manages to elicit a little compassion for his efforts! Negative critics have tried to bring a seriousness to this caper that it never tries nor pretends to have, this is just a fun movie, although, they could have made more use of the superb David Mitchell who was, sadly, almost written out of this film.