''American Gun'' is a 2005 American

crime drama Crime films, in the broadest sense, is a film genre inspired by and analogous to the crime fiction literary genre. Films of this genre generally involve various aspects of crime and its detection. Stylistically, the genre may overlap and combine ...

film produced by

Participant Productions Participant Media, LLC is an American film production company founded in 2004 by Jeffrey Skoll, dedicated to entertainment intended to spur social change. The company finances and co-produces film and television content, as well as digital enter ...

, IFC Films, IFC First Take, and

Spirit Dance Entertainment Forest Steven Whitaker (born July 15, 1961) is an American actor. He is the recipient of various accolades, including an Academy Award, a Golden Globe Award, a British Academy Film Award, and two Screen Actors Guild Awards. After making his f ...

. It was written in 2001 by Steven Bagatourian and Aric Avelino and directed by Avelino as his directorial debut. Avelino attended

Loyola Marymount University Loyola Marymount University (LMU) is a private Jesuit and Marymount research university in Los Angeles, California. It is located on the west side of the city near Playa Vista. LMU is the parent school to Loyola Law School, which is located ...

and made the film with many LMU alumni, including producer Ted Kroeber. The film took two and a half years to finance. The central idea came from a " Column One" article in the ''

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the Un ...

''. In addition, the writers were influenced by a friend from the

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

school district who related stories about how students brought guns to school, not to use them on campus, but because of the dangerous neighborhoods they live in or walk through to attend classes. Avelino was very appreciative of the directorial advice of

Forest Whitaker Forest Steven Whitaker (born July 15, 1961) is an American actor. He is the recipient of List of awards and nominations received by Forest Whitaker, various accolades, including an Academy Award, a Golden Globe Award, a British Academy Film Award ...

, one of the film's producers. The first actress attached to the project was

Marcia Gay Harden Marcia Gay Harden (born August 14, 1959) is an American actress. She is the recipient of accolades including an Academy Award and a Tony Award, in addition to nominations for a Critics' Choice Movie Award and three Primetime Emmy Awards. Born ...

Premise

''American Gun'' centers around three stories dealing with the results of gun use: an inner city school principal (Whitaker), a single mother (Harden), and an A student (Cardellini) who works at her family's gun shop.

Cast

– Janet Huttenson *

– Carter *

Donald Sutherland Donald McNichol Sutherland (born 17 July 1935) is a Canadian actor whose film career spans over six decades. He has been nominated for nine Golden Globe Awards, winning two for his performances in the television films ''Citizen X'' (1995) an ...

– Carl Wilk * Lisa Long – Sandra Cohen *

Arlen Escarpeta Arlen Alexander Escarpeta is a Belizean-born American actor. He is best known for his roles in the films ''Friday the 13th'', ''Brotherhood'', ''Final Destination 5'', '' Into the Storm'' (2014), and most notably, his portrayal of Bobby Brown in ...

– Jay * Chris Warren Jr. – Marcus * David Heymann – Producer *

Chris Marquette Chris Marquette (born October 3, 1984) is an American actor. He is known for his roles in such films as ''The Tic Code'', ''Freddy vs. Jason'', '' The Girl Next Door'', ''Just Friends'', '' Alpha Dog'' and '' Fanboys''. He is also known for his ...

– David Huttenson *

Amanda Seyfried Amanda Michelle Seyfried ( ; born December 3, 1985) is an American actress. Born and raised in Allentown, Pennsylvania, she began modeling at age 11 and ventured into acting at 15, with recurring roles as Lucy Montgomery on the CBS soap opera ...

– Mouse *

Nikki Reed Nicole Houston Reed (born May 17, 1988) is an American actress known for her portrayal of vampire Rosalie Hale in '' The Twilight Saga'' (2008–2012). She became known in 2003, after the release of the film ''Thirteen'', directed by Catherine ...

– Tally *

Joseph Kell John Anthony Burgess Wilson, (; 25 February 1917 – 22 November 1993), who published under the name Anthony Burgess, was an English writer and composer. Although Burgess was primarily a comic writer, his dystopian satire ''A Clockwork O ...

– Security Guard *

Tony Goldwyn Anthony Howard Goldwyn (born May 20, 1960) is an American actor, singer, producer, director, and political activist. He made his debut appearing as Darren in the slasher film '' Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives'' (1986), and had his breakthr ...

– Frank *

Rex Linn Rex Maynard Linn (born November 13, 1956) is an American film and television actor. He is best known domestically for playing the role of Sgt. Frank Tripp in the CBS drama ''CSI: Miami'' and more recently for playing Kevin Wachtell in the televi ...

– Earl * Kevin Phillips – Reggie * Davenia McFadden – Felicia *

Linda Cardellini Linda Edna Cardellini (born June 25, 1975) is an American actress. In television, she is known for her leading roles in the teen drama ''Freaks and Geeks'' (1999–2000), the medical drama '' ER'' (2003–09), the drama thriller ''Bloodline'' (2 ...

– Mary Ann Wilk *

Schuyler Fisk Schuyler Elizabeth Fisk (pronounced ) is an American actress and singer-songwriter. Early life Fisk was born in Los Angeles, California, to actress Sissy Spacek and production designer Jack Fisk. She has a younger sister named Madison. Fisk b ...

– Cicily *

Michael Shannon Michael Corbett Shannon (born August 7, 1974) is an American actor, producer, musician, and theater director. He is an off beat actor known for his on-screen versatility, performing in both comedies and dramas. He became known for his frequent ...

(as Michael J. Shannon) – Jerry * Charles Duckworth – Connie * Todd Tesen – Barry *

Melissa Leo Melissa Chessington Leo (born September 14, 1960) is an American actress. She is the recipient of several accolades, including an Academy Award, a Primetime Emmy Award, a Golden Globe Award, a Screen Actors Guild Award and two Critics' Choice ...

– Louise * Gary Paul Clark – Supervisor *

Ali Hillis Ali Hillis (born December 29, 1978) is an American actress who has appeared in television and film, and voices a number of characters in video games. She may be best known for her video game work as Dr. Liara T'Soni in the ''Mass Effect'' trilogy ...

- Gun Shop Patron *

Garcelle Beauvais Garcelle Beauvais (, formerly Beauvais-Nilon; born November 26, 1966) is a Haitian-American actress and television personality. She is best known for her starring roles in the sitcom ''The Jamie Foxx Show'' and the crime drama series ''NYPD Blue' ...

(as Garcelle Beauvais-Nilon) – Sarah

Reception

review aggregator A review aggregator is a system that collects reviews of products and services (such as films, books, video games, software, hardware, and cars). This system stores the reviews and uses them for purposes such as supporting a website where users ...

website

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

, the film holds an approval rating of 39% based on 31 critic reviews, with an

average rating In ordinary language, an average is a single number taken as representative of a list of numbers, usually the sum of the numbers divided by how many numbers are in the list (the arithmetic mean). For example, the average of the numbers 2, 3, 4, 7 ...

of 5.30/10. The site's critics consensus reads, "Despite its intriguing premise, this earnest anti-gun polemic is too melodramatic to resonate." According to

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

, which compiled 14 reviews and calculated a weighted average score of 48 out of 100, the film received "mixed or average reviews".

Distribution

According to boxofficemojo.com, ''American Gun'' took in $24,098 in a limited release from one to six theatres in a little over 10 weeks in theatres from March 22 – June 1, 2006. It was featured on the IFC program '' First Take''.

Awards

Independent Spirit Awards The Independent Spirit Awards (abbreviated Spirit Awards and originally known as the FINDIE or Friends of Independents Awards), founded in 1984, are awards dedicated to independent filmmakers. Winners were typically presented with Poly(methyl m ...

NominationsIMDb's awards page
**Best Feature, Ted Kroeber, producer. **Best Male Lead,

. **Best Supporting Female,

References

External links

* * {{rotten-tomatoes, american_gun
LMU alumni
press release about the movie.
American Gun official site

IFC "First Take"
2005 films 2005 crime drama films American crime drama films American independent films 2000s English-language films Films set in Chicago Films shot in Chicago IFC Films films Participant (company) films 2005 directorial debut films 2005 independent films 2000s American films