Gun Shy Blu-ray despite stunning video and audio falls short as a Blu-ray release
The story follows Turk Henry, a mega platinum rock star who's married to a supermodel and rich beyond his wildest dreams. Whilst on holiday, his wife is mysteriously abducted by a group of renegade, ship-less pirates. With little assistance from local authorities Turk is forced to embark on a mission to rescue his wife. With life skills better suited to playing bass, playing the field, and partying he is forced to navigate through deadly jungles and take on ruthless bandits in this truly hilarious, action-packed romp.
For more about Gun Shy and the Gun Shy Blu-ray release, see Gun Shy Blu-ray Review published by Jeffrey Kauffman on November 6, 2017 where this Blu-ray release scored 2.0 out of 5.
Johnny Depp "did" Keith Richards in his portrayal of Captain Jack Sparrow in the original Pirates of the Caribbean Trilogy and subsequent Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides and Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales.
Gun Shy offers the intermittently amusing sight of Antonio Banderas "doing" Johnny Depp doing Keith Richards, with a similarly "xeroxed"
feeling to a lot of the screenplay which seems sewn together from bits stolen from films like Snatched, efforts which few would hardly call masterpieces and therefore perhaps arguably not the best things to be
stealing from. There's a lot of noise and fury relentlessly filling the often
quite colorful frame in Gun Shy, but it does in fact signify nothing, or at least next to nothing, with a game if perhaps desperate cast camping
it up in a tale of a supermodel named Sheila (Olga Kurylenko) married to a former Rock God named Turk (Antonio Banderas), who ends up being
taken hostage in the back woods of Chile, ostensibly Turk's home country, though he insists he's English and also insists he doesn't speak Spanish.
This is a film that tries to wring comedy from the mere sight of Banderas wrapped in gypsy scarves and sporting hippie length hair (not to mention
Sparrow- and/or Richards-esque mascara), but which only sporadically provides giggles, let alone any guffaws.
This is the kind of film that begins with Turk watching one of those music documentary series like VH1 Behind the Music, which in this
instance is of course doing an exposé on what happened to Turk. The episode makes Sheila out to be a "new, improved" Yoko Ono, but in just one
of
the film's many illogical presentations, Sheila actually turns out to be the adult in the relationship, trying to coax her husband to get out of the
house
and back to his native country, where he's still considered a megastar and where she hopes the adulation will reignite Turk's ability to write Top 10
hits. (A salient example of the lowbrow, unambitious humor that Gun Shy attempts to exploit comes courtesy of the name of one of
Turk's
former Top 10 hits from his heyday: "Teenage Ass Patrol". Hilarious.)
Turk is initially confused when they get to Chile why their resort is completely empty and why it's so frigid outside in the middle of July, until Sheila
explains a little thing called the Southern Hemisphere to him. Meanwhile, Turk has befriended a sweet little kid who delivers beer and makes the
poolside area seem a better bet than a hike in the Chilean woods. That leads to the main plot conceit, where a bunch of brigands (who of course
turn out to be major fans of Turk's "Teenage Ass Patrol" era work) kidnap a bunch of tourists, including Sheila, ultimately attempting to ransom her
for a cool million. In yet another "meanwhile", a nerdy, officious embassy guy named Ben Hardin (Mark Valley) gets involved, though instead of
helping retrieve Sheila, he keeps putting up roadblocks. It's all incredibly overblown, with virtually everyone playing to the veritable second
balcony and thereby undermining what actual comedic content (which is not substantial, mind you) is there in the first place.
When the film isn't virtually brow beating the audience into submission (I guess like any good metal act), there are some sweet asides that do
occasionally land in the "gentle smile" category, if not laugh out loud territory. Some of the more cartoonish, even lunatic, elements, like a brief
vignette involving "killer llamas", are so silly that they almost automatically guarantee a "pity laugh" or two, but even this scene ends with such a
bizarrely shocking "joke" that the humor just kind of stops before it ever really gets going. It's actually fun to see Banderas playing such a spoiled,
unprepared
fop attempting to rescue his gorgeous wife, but there are so many subplots stuffed into this outing that it just ultimately kind of collapses under its
own weight.
Gun Shy is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Lionsgate Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.39:1. The closing credits mention Arri
Rentals, which may or may not indicate those cameras were actually used for the shoot, but this has a generally appealing and often incredibly colorful
looking transfer, one with overall excellent detail levels, especially when bright, outdoor lighting regimens allow. Fine detail on elements like some of
the Rococo patterns on fabrics Turk wears is typically precise looking, and similarly the palette on some of the costuming choices pops extremely well.
There are some passing deficits with shadow detail in some of the kidnap scenes once Sheila is sequestered in shadowy environments, but even here
there are moments of nice looking fine detail, as in a burlap sack that's placed over one of the hostage's heads.
Gun Shy features a nicely boisterous DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track that benefits from supposed "soundtrack" offerings by Turk's Metal
Assassin band, but which also derives quite a bit of good surround activity in the outdoor scenes once Sheila has been abducted. The film is kind of
relentlessly noisy, even in supposedly "quiet" dialogue scenes, but fidelity remains excellent throughout the presentation and prioritization is also
surprisingly well handled despite some of the raucous tendencies of the sound design.
The Rock Star, the Pirate and the Cast of Gun Shy (1080i; 8:49) is standard issue EPK fare, but does have decent
interview snippets and some fun behind the scenes stills.
There is actually a quite winning premise at the core of Gun Shy, and the cast certainly seems willing to dig into this fitfully amusing material
with a lot of energy, but unfortunately the writing is simply never very funny, or at least as funny as it should be. Fans of Banderas may well get a kick
out of seeing him essay such a goofy role, but even those fans may wonder why Gun Shy never really hits the bullseye. Technical merits are
very strong for those considering a purchase.
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Lionsgate Home Entertainment has officially announced that it will release on Blu-ray director Simon West's action thriller Gun Shy (2017), starring Antonio Banderas, Olga Kurylenko, Ben Cura, Mark Valley, and Aisling Loftus. The release will be available for ...
All countries
Argentina
Austria
Belgium
Brazil
Bulgaria
Chile
China
Colombia
Czech Republic
Estonia
Denmark
Finland
Greece
Hong Kong
Hungary
Iceland
Indonesia
Ireland
Israel
India
Latvia
Malaysia
New Zealand
Norway
Philippines
Poland
Portugal
Romania
Russia
Singapore
South Africa
South Korea
Sweden
Switzerland
Taiwan
Thailand
Turkey
Ukraine
United Arab Emirates
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