The Way of the Gun

A belated, Tarantino-spawn crime caper packed with highly contrived, high-caliber gunplay and other bursts of meaningless creativity, The Way of the Gun marks the gritty and stylish but hollow and hyperbolic directorial debut of The Usual Suspects screenwriter Christopher McQuarrie. Ryan Phillippe and Benicio Del Toro play a pair of petty thugs who concoct a scheme to kidnap a surrogate mother (Juliette Lewis) and ransom her unborn child. Naturally, they get more than they bargained for when the parents-to-be--a crooked L.A. millionaire and his frigid, disinterested trophy wife--dispatch a glib-but-lethal "cleaner" (James Caan) to get their baby back by any means necessary. With every character a cold, manipulative lowlife, it's difficult to give a stitch who, if anyone, survives the ensuing melee. Not a necessary purchase. (R. Blackwelder)