Handgun - Hetzjagd durch New York

That's how Joe Bob Briggs put it when I first saw this film back in 1995 on The Movie Channel. In early 2002, it was on late night on TMC, and I got to check it out for the first time in years.

Still a great crime movie with excellent dialogue and acting. For 'Soprano's' fans, you will definitely love seeing many of your favorite characters pop up in this earlier work, many of which are minor roles. Treat Williams, Paul Schulze, Frank Vincent, and several others give great performances. The action sequences, consisting mostly of close-up gun battles, are a little hard to believe, unless people in New York are lousy shots. But the storyline and comedy bits definitely make this a worthwhile film to watch, especially for fans of mob movies.

I expected a good-guys versus mafia types, and kinda got it. After about 5 minutes, I thought the dialog was stupid, and the characters unbelievable. After another 5 minutes, I realized that it actually was a comedy, very subtle and understated.

I would have given it a higher grade if I had known that sooner. Whose fault was that? They have to take some of the blame.

Handgun is about as original as its title, but it benefits from a reasonably well written screenplay and a simply outstanding cast: really, how can you go wrong when you have Seymour Cassel, Frank Vincent, Luis Guzman, Treat Williams, Michael Imperioli, and Paul Schulze all in the same film? Predictable? yes. Enjoyable? Thoroughly. Mob movies fans need to catch this one.

This is a petty hoodlums story, not big shots, where Treat Williams seems younger than ever, in the Matt Dillon mode. This TV movie is pretty entertaining, a feature which the pace is rather fast and the comedy lines not against the drama matter. In the nineties, you could find entire batches of this kind of material, but because they were mostly destined to the straight to VHS market, many audiences despised them. And from time to time, you could miss something worth or worse.... This one is the perfect example of this. Characters are moving, and it's very easy to watch it without any scare of boredom. I was smart enought to amass the most of them during this decade.

Vincent Cassel is at the top of his game, scoring a half million dollars in a daring robbery and shoot out. Treat Williams and Paul Schulze play his squabbling sons. When the old man is shot by some unsavory characters looking for his stashed cash, Williams and Shulze each get partial information on the money's location. This of course smacks of Clint Eastwood and Eli Wallach's quest for Confederate gold hidden in a cemetery, while being pursued by Lee VanCleef, in "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly". There is some sharp humor in "Hand Gun", and the acting and character development is excellent. Highly recommended. - MERK