Christopher McQuarrie's (Jack Reacher) directorial debut saw release in 2000 and disappointed financially on it's theatrical run. It has since achieved minor cult status on home video, but we think that a tense and hard-hitting film like this is deserving of wider recognition. McQuarrie wrote and directed The Way Of The Gun five years after his acclaimed script for The Usual Suspects made it's way to the screen courtesy of Bryan Singer's direction. McQuarrie has gone on record saying that the years after The Usual Suspects were tough, as he saw the harsh reality that he didn't have as much cache with producers as one would think after a huge success like Suspects. A meeting for coffee with Benicio Del Toro, who had starred in Suspects, was a fateful one, with Del Toro asking why McQuarrie hadn't written another crime movie, as a film like that would surely have minimal studio interference. McQuarrie came up with The Way Of The Gun, the story of two kidnappers (Del Toro and Ryan Phillippe) who take a pregnant surrogate mother (Juliette Lewis) and hold her for ransom. Of course, it turns out that she is the surrogate for a very powerful and dangerous man, who sends experienced 'bag-man' James Caan after them. The film functions in some ways as a modern day Western, and the sharp and sudden blasts of violence are always a shock to the system.
