Sean Penn can feel a little Liam Neeson coming on in The Gunman

REVIEW: Everyone’s gotta take a job to pay the bills once in a while. Even a decorated practitioner of the acting crafts like Sean Penn, star of The Gunman.

The Gunman (MA15+)

Director: Pierre Morel (Taken)

Starring: Sean Penn, Jasmine Trinca, Javier Bardem, Ray Winstone, Mark Rylance, Idris Elba.

Rating: **1/2

The Penn not always mightier than the flawed

EVERYONE’S gotta take a job to pay the bills once in a while. Even a decorated practitioner of the acting crafts like method man Sean Penn.

No-one could accuse 54-year-old Penn of simply slouching his way through this bullets-blood-and-guts affair. The bloke clearly hit the gym hard in anticipation of all the times he would have to take his shirt off here.

Bringing out the big guns ... Sean Penn has buffed up for this action flick.

Nevertheless, the Oscar-winner’s celebrated work ethic doesn’t exactly lift a low-flying movie experience.

Once the novelty of Penn carrying on like Sly Stallone’s better-educated younger brother wears off, you can’t help but hope The Gunman will suddenly shift gears and show us what piqued the actor’s interest in it in the first place.

Are we having fun yet? ... Javier Bardem, Sean Penn and Jasmine Trinca in The Gunman.

Of course, such a moment of reckoning doesn’t stand a chance of coming to pass under the uninterested direction of French friction merchant Pierre Morel.

He has already shown in previous endeavours such as the original Taken and From Paris With Love that as long as the stunts, shootings and beatings remain in focus, the actors can do as they like.

Therefore the most attractive aspect of The Gunman is the company Penn chooses to keep while slumming it in this pulpy, globetrotting brawn-fest.

Lean and mean ... Penn looks great, but The Gunman is unlikely to be remembered as his best body of work.

Javier Bardem (always welcome when working in not-to-be-trusted mode), Ray Winstone and Idris Elba refuse to take proceedings as semi-seriously as the leading man, and The Gunman is all the better for the disrespect they often show it.

Aside from two extended sequences where Morel throws away the rule book and goes a little crazy for a while, this is B-movie business all the way for anyone after something that doesn’t feature Liam Neeson in any capacity.

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Originally published as Sean Penn can feel a little Liam Neeson coming on in The Gunman