Stephen King Recommends This Under-Seen Crime Thriller on Peacock
Stephen King famously penned an editorial for EW calling out Kill Bill: Volume 1 as “dully full of itself” around the time the picture bowed in theaters. While I can’t get on board with King’s take on that Tarantino feature, the author snuck in a recommendation for a film he really admires at the tail end of that piece.
In the final portion of his post, King recommends The Way of the Gun. I remember picking the flick up on VHS back in college. I don’t think I’ve seen it since. But I do remember the picture as a gritty ordeal with a talented cast. King remembers the film quite fondly. He closes out his essay by discussing what it feels like to be pleasantly surprised by a movie that matters.
This Stephen King-approved crime thriller plays out like this:
They make no excuses. They don’t ask for forgiveness. Their story is without compromise, brutal, and simple. For contemporary desperados Parker (Ryan Phillippe) and Longbaugh (Benicio del Toro), crime means survival at any cost. Their impromptu plan to kidnap surrogate mother Robin (Juliette Lewis), just weeks from delivering the son of Hale (Scott Wilson) and Francesca Chidduck (Kristin Lehman), seems to be a fast way to cash in on a fat ransom and head for the border. But their haste does indeed make waste.
“Every time I go, I go with the highest of high hopes, my ticket money in one hand and my heart in the other,” King says of the cinematic experience. “Most times the movie turns out to be a stinker, but sometimes you find a real classic like The Way of the Gun, Billy Elliot, or Mystic River. When that happens, I can steal this year’s World Series slogan and put it to even better use: I live for this.”
Although the author doesn’t delve too deeply into why he loves the film, he has a pretty impressive track record. King has turned me on to many flicks I hold in high regard. In this case, it’s a picture I already remember liking. So, that’s all the more encouragement I need to navigate to Peacock and pay The Way of the Gun a repeat visit.
Was this recommendation actually intended, in part, as a slight?
One final thought on King’s rec: The Way of the Gun has been described by some as Tarantino-esque. I remember it as a gritty crime thriller with certain similarities to the Oscar-winning filmmaker’s output. And that makes me wonder if King did that deliberately. If he was so disenchanted by Tarantino that he suggested that movie lovers watch a film that riffs on the director’s style rather than one of his actual films (Kill Bill)? You never know. King is a master of shade, after all. And that may have been his intent. Or, it could have been entirely innocuous.
Stay tuned to Dread Central for more recommendations from your favorite creators in the genre space as we uncover them. Also, don’t forget to follow us on the social media platform formerly known as Twitter (it will never be X to me) so you never miss out on an update.
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