IS THAT A GUN IN YOUR POCKET?: Crude & Clichéd

Every now and then there is a movie or two that’s so bad that you actually find yourself walking away from it halfway through, or having to pep talk yourself into finishing watching – that’s the category that Is That A Gun In Your Pocket? falls into.

The film is an attempt at comedy written and directed by Matt Cooper, starring Andrea Anders, Matt Passmore, John Heard and Cloris Leachman. This film is loosely based on the 2,000 year old Greek play, “Lysistrada” by Aristophanes (like Spike Lee‘s Chi-Raq) – and this version does not translate well.

Once Upon A Time In A Small Texas Town…

This story takes place in a whitewashed Texas town with one token Latin couple who live up to the stereotypical clichés. Is That A Gun In Your Pocket? is full of outdated stereotypes, misogyny, misandry, and relies on cheap vulgarity for attempts at humor. It’s supposed to be a comedy, but I wasn’t laughing.

The writing is terrible: an idealistic middle school kid has an unrealistic fantasy of showing up to school with a gun, accidentally shooting a crosswalk guard while trying to impress a classmate, and instead of getting into any trouble, the town goes into an all-out battle of the sexes, staged by his parents.

After the school shooting, Mr. & Mrs. Keeley get the town riled up when Jenna (Anders) convinces the women of the town to withhold sex until the men of the town give up their guns. Glenn (Passmore), an avid hunter and gun collector, takes a rebellious stand against this notion and gets the townsmen behind him, thus creating a town of 6,969 people to go into a full-on battle of the sexes war. Knowing this was written by a grown man, and not a middle school kid, makes me embarrassed for Cooper.

Let’s Give ‘Em Something To Talk About

The dialogue is so unrealistic, I had a hard time believing that any grown men would talk this way. A great example of this is shown in the bowling alley scene. A group of men who’ve been cut off sexually from their wives are at a bowling alley, but we don’t actually see them bowl or blow off steam like men do. Instead they are sitting around complaining about their sexual frustrations while they drool over the horny and sexy token Latina who is sending pictures to her husband as a tease. Yeah, right! In what universe is this realistic? Those Texas men would be at a bar or strip club, not acting like a bunch of pussy-whipped sour pusses.

Another terribly unrealistic plot in this cinematic disaster is when the religious leaders and the cops of this God-fearing, gun loving Texas town are the ones who decide to bring in truck-loads of hookers in their battle against the townswomen. But the truck loads of hookers are intercepted by the women of the town, who stage a massive road block after having stolen cop cars and uniforms – with no legal consequences to speak of for anyone.

This is a town where kids can shoot up schools, people can steal cop cars and uniforms and impersonate police officers – and have no repercussions. The town is also owned by a billionaire who has gone off to seek a more spiritual path in India, but he comes back to save his little town with good old-fashioned bribery in the end.

Down To Technicalities

I’ll cut the cast a little slack in Is That A Gun In Your Pocket? because I think they gave it their best shot given the script they had to work with. The direction wasn’t much better than the dialogue, though. There wasn’t any onscreen chemistry to speak of between any of the characters. This film didn’t have a talentless cast, but they were given a weak script based on an overall bad concept in poor taste, especially considering how many school shootings (and their effects) have occurred over the years. It’s one thing to be controversial and push the envelope, but this wasn’t that.

The cinematography, lighting, and sound mixing were probably the best part of this film, which are very important elements in film; but without a good story, those elements alone won’t do the trick.

Is That A Gun In Your Pocket? is definitely the type of movie that will leave you scratching your head, wondering how in the hell this got funded and made.

Conclusion

If I hadn’t committed to writing a review of Is That A Gun In Your Pocket?, I likely wouldn’t have had to convince myself to sit through the second half of it. If I was anyone else, I’d have turned it off and probably not given it a second thought. I wanted to give it the benefit of the doubt that it would pick up in the third act and redeem itself, but it didn’t. This film was a consistent cheesy disappointment from beginning to end.

Is That A Gun In Your Pocket? is now playing in theaters.

Have you ever had a hard time getting through a movie in one sitting? If so, what was it and why?