My New Gun (1992) (original) (raw)
Synopsis
A comedy about the American dream.
Debbie Bender is a New Jersey housewife whose husband gives her a gun for self-protection; soon her life is turned upside down when their cute but wacky neighbor Skippy "borrows" it.
Cast
Popular reviews
Sometimes you stumble across a tiny low-budget film that's exactly your sense of humor? This is that for me. Weird (WEIRD!) dark aimless super-quotable '90s comedy starring two of my favorite actors. "I'm not here to take your daughter to the prom." "Well I don't think Skippy's into *Satan*…" Surprisingly assured for a debut film; surprised this didn't become a total cult classic. It's definitely not for everyone, but if it's for you, you'll know almost immediately.
IRS Media-produced early 90s quasi-crime comedy/parodic domestic thriller quirkfest with strong Hal Hartley feel. Slinky lounge music, circumlocutory conversation, dry humor and cuts/composition stylized for comedic effect, knee-slappingly escalating suspense. We follow a normal married couple with a funny aloof weirdo neighbor and unlikely homewrecker "Skippy," who has a neon orange skateboard and ping-pong table and lives with his mother who we're not entirely certain exists. I love it when the insane person proves to be the most sensible character. Awesome comically histrionic acting by the exasperated 7th Heaven dad and a brief cameo by a young Philip Seymour Hoffman. Ends appropriately in a cover of "That's When I Reach for My Revolver." Major indie cred.
can we reverse roles and let skippy be played by philip seymour hoffman pls
A defiantly strange portrait of so many late-modern middle-class (perhaps distinctly American) malaises; not just the cheaply bought fantasy of gun ownership and manufactured illusions of some spectral suburban threat, but the loneliness of the model family unit and the suffocating banality of having to develop taste in things like linoleum. “We live in a very sick world. The fact is, I’m very uncomfortable with us, living the way that we do.” A neglected housewife’s tentative grasp for something more bearable in the form of her shifty young neighbor and a new pistol that never manages to stay where it belongs. “I used to vomit blood in high school all the time, and I was fine.” “Well, she’s not vomiting…
Hints of Wim Wenders and Hal Hartley, characters talking outright about the insane nineties interiors (“who picked out this [bright red LEGO textured] linoleum?” in the film James Le Gros admitted in an interview to “trying not to act” in. Plays with ideas of male power and control and breaking the cycle of bad dads. The climax occurs at a wedding, which is one of my favorite tropes. A surprise cameo from Philip Seymour Hoffman shouting about thunder storms. Is there anything this movie doesn’t have??
I’m going to the Red Chimney for lunch y’all hungry???
I did not realize how good I had it the first time I watched a crisp HD version of My New Gun when it was on Amazon Prime a few years ago because now I can only find it in 360p on Russian pirating sites :( But I finally bought a DVD copy from eBay so 🙏
The highlight of this film is still the minimum-wage restaurant employee with tattoos and painted nails who used to vomit blood in high school, smoking behind the bar and staring blankly at unconscious patrons. Chris is second in my rankings of “**PSH Characters Who Are Most Excited About Weather.**”
Love when he whispers something…
This reminded me of a movie they watched on Red Letter Media called Ryan's Babe, every minute something weird would happen and i had no idea why or how.. or what was going on.. someone please shoot me!
The Roku description for this is “a suburbanite gives his wife a gun for protection, but a weirdo steals it” and that’s accurate
Evokes Hal Hartley, guys?!?! No. No it freakin’ doesn’t! Lol.
This is a listless, oddball (but without much charm), wannabe Demme movie with hardly anything to recommend about it — Lane’s scatterbrained for seemingly no reason, LeGros is a creep and a home-wrecker, the 7th Heaven hubby gets understandably grumpier as the movie goes along and Le Gros keeps trying to fuck his wife, but eventually just seems to be “the asshole” out of nowhere…
P.S. Hoffman has 2 minutes of awesomeness and then nothing comes of it…
And there’s a bit of WTF-based tension that mounts as it goes along somewhat aimlessly but with a sense of impending (very low-key) danger.
Watched with my mom and she now has her least favorite movie. This movie’s like what I imagine taking Valium is like.
i’m a doctor she’s dead btw