The Gunrunner

Quite an interesting film indeed, very smoothly directed and easily played without ruining it by too much talking. The only thing I couldn't help thinking all the time was, that this looked as if it was a film by Alan Rudolph and even Costner and his way of acting looked a lot as if the director had intended to cast Keith Carradine instead. Even the soundtrack seems to imitate Mark Isham and if you close your eyes, it's sometimes hard not to be perplexed by the closeness to "Choose Me" or perhaps "The Moderns" - by the mood, not the story! The most surprising thing is, that the movie works, though. In fact, this is one of the best screen appearances of Costner I've seen, at least because he avoids the usual grinning and concentrates on the driven and melancholy character.

This movie is a melodrama about a young gunrunner in the 1920's. It is OK for Kevin Costner fans only!!the movie was delayed until Kevin Costner became a household name!!If you want a great movie with him watch"No Way Out","Robin Hood:Prince of Thieves" or one of his baseball games especially "Bull Durham"!!This movie will not be the remember Costner when he stops acting !!I will remember him from those titles above!!The only people who will take an interest in this movie will be his faithful fans!!!other than skip this slow action drama!!

My review was written in June 1989 after watching the film on New World video cassette.

Before playing Eliot Ness in "The Untouchables" Kevin Costner starred in this unreleased Canadian pic as a Montreal good-guy gangster. Video debut six years after has weak prospects since it's a very dull show.

In an otherwise Canadian cast, Costner toplines as Tod Beaubien, returning hotm to Montreal from China in 1926 to become embroiled in local politics, class struggles and family infighting. Boring plotline has him ultimately launching a one-man vendetta against corruption, with anticlimax that his gunrunning is actually on the side of the angels, to back a revolution in China.

For Costner fans, pic would have been more interesting if he played a baddie to contrast with his recent all-American hero stardom. Instead, he's laid-back, self-assured and stuck in an almost actionles vehicle that plays like a subpar telefilm. Sara Botsford brightens things up a bit as a villainous gambling club operator, but her sex scene with Costner is extremely tame.

Tech credits are chintzy, with variable sound recording.

I picked this up on DVD for $4, because I knew I could trade it one-for-one at a used book store. It was well worth the investment.

There are some problems with this movie. It's melodramatic for one. It has some cornball dialogue. It's just a little cheesy.

The story has big romantic moments, but no big romantic leads. The woman could be Kevin Costner's mom, and he wasn't the leading man women knew him as a few years ago. Despite many sexy locations and moments, this film is asexual.

In a way, The Gunrunner takes place in the naive, simple 1920s one might imagine after only having seen bad movie versions of the time. It's a really interesting world. I see this movie as a gangster-themed steampunk version of No Way Out (1987). I mean, what other movie hero helps start the Chinese Revolution? I was taken to a different place, and I didn't lose my suspension of disbelief along the way. Only afterwards do I admit that it wasn't so great. At the time, I was loving it.

It reminds me a lot of The Boy in Blue (1986). It's always good to see rare movies like this, and it's definitely worth the price of a rental.

I like Kevin Costner, I really do. However, if I were him, I'd bury this unintelligible mess of a movie so far down on my resume it would take coal miners to find it. It has something to do with a drifter returning home to find the family fortune gone, and his brother in trouble with local gangsters. The drifter wants the money to finance a revolution in China for reasons that aren't made clear. Dreadfully slow and extremely bad.