Gun (TV series)

An intriguing premise and a stellar group of participants both in front of and behind the camera propel Gun, a three-disc collection of six short films that originally aired in 1997 on ABC-TV. Creator James Sadwith (who also wrote and/or directed some episodes), along with big name directors like Robert Altman (Short Cuts, The Player), James Foley, and the late Ted Demme, oversaw these comical, tragic, tawdry, and sometimes compelling tales, most of them involving murder, adultery, betrayal, and other sins and all of them triggered (so to speak), driven, and sometimes resolved by the same handgun. While the gun is often totemic more than an active participant (indeed, in some episodes it's not even fired), it is the single element that ties them together. It's a provocative idea, but one that fails to fully live up to its promise. For one, while the gun often changes hands within a given story, we never see how it gets from one episode to the next; there's no overall connecting tissue here. And while there are enough stars on hand to populate your average TV awards show (James Gandolfini, Rosanna Arquette, Randy Quaid, Jennifer Tilly, Kirsten Dunst, Martin Sheen, and Edward James Olmos, to name but a few), there isn't a lot that any of them can do if the script they're working with is as tepid as some of Gun's are. "Columbus Day," with Gandolfini and Arquette, builds a fair amount of tension, with a nice little twist at the end. Altman's own "All the President's Women," with Quaid, Tilly, Daryl Hannah, and others, is silly and over the top. "The Shot," featuring a loud, whiny lead performance by Daniel Stern, does a decent job of satirizing the media's obsession with 15-second celebrity but falls prey to a way-too-facile ending. "Ricochet," with Sheen as a detective on the verge of retirement who's living out the "just one last case, I swear" clich?, is simply unconvincing in just about every way. And so it goes. Gun certainly has its moments (as well as a trailer and a photo gallery among its extra features), but for the most part, this qualifies as a missed opportunity. - Sam Graham