Gire: Penn's laughable 'Gunman' misses every mark

Significantly, "The Gunman" stages its dramatic climax at a bullfighting ring in Spain's Catalonia, which outlawed the sport three years ago.

Peter Morel's guns-ablazin' international thriller thrives on being slightly behind the times, a motif that spills over into French actress Jasmine Trinca's Annie, so lacking in purpose and personality that she might as well be an ancient artifact, a pot of gold or some other inanimate treasure to be fought over and possessed by macho male competitors.

Annie works as a doctor, but that doesn't matter in this simplistic, unintentionally comic Sean Penn vanity project resonating with 1950s vibes, right down to the middle-aged hero hooking up with a hottie young enough to be his daughter.

"The Gunman" begins in 2006 in the Democratic Republic of Congo where Penn's tough-guy Jim Terrier works as a security guard for mining companies. He also moonlights as an assassin for corporate interests when he's not making appointments to see the doctor.

One night, he takes out the Congo's cabinet minister and high-tails it out of the country, leaving his friend and co-worker Felix (Javier Bardem) to watch over naively idealistic Annie.

"I'll take care of her!" Felix says, as if agreeing to feed a friend's dog while he's away.

Seven years pass.

Terrier is back in Africa, helping the locals build their infrastructure, suggesting he's a new man dedicated to doing good deeds to atone for his amoral previous profession.

While digging in a shallow well, Terrier gets attacked by gunmen. Fortunately, Terrier has much bigger guns, massive muscles that he brandishes by removing his shirt more times in "The Gunman" than the average porn star.

Convinced that somebody has leaked his involvement with the Congo assassination from seven years earlier, Terrier contacts his old boss Eugene (Ade Oyefeso), who pooh-poohs his concerns. Terrier also connects with former colleagues Stan (Ray Winstone as a cocky cockney character) and Cox (Mark Rylance, shellacked with sleaze), but they have no clue why Terrier was attacked.

"Keep your eyes open, my friend," Cox croaks. "It's the ones who aren't after you who do you in the end!"

Considering most everyone in "The Gunman" is after Terrier, that narrows the field of potential foes considerably.

Terrier heads to Barcelona where bud Felix has been taking care of Annie so well, she wants to adopt a baby with him.

But when Annie re-connects with her old, weather-beaten flame, the sparks prove tepid at best, calculated at worst. Perhaps Penn was distracted by his other filmmaking duties as producer and co-writer of the screenplay, a muddled marriage of John LeCarre intrigue and Jason Bourne strobe-edited fights.

Taking cues from his "Taken," the 2009 thriller that launched Liam Neeson's second-wind career as an action star, Morel tries to rebrand Penn as Hollywood's newest AARP avenger. Penn, an actor who has never been able to fake likability (even as the mentally challenged dad in "I Am Sam") remains too charmless to make it work.

Bardem appears almost bored playing second fiddle to Penn's mirthless, unapproachable, irritating assassin. Trinca has so little material to work with that her pleasant demeanor can't hold the screen for the brief time she's been allowed.

A charismatic Idris Elba as an INTERPOL agent (clocking in at around the 80-minute mark) spices up the drama for a moment or two before he launches into an idiotic, overdone "building a treehouse together" spy metaphor with the hunted Terrier.

By the time Terrier confronts the people who aren't after him at the Catalonian bullfight, the crazy climactic clash not only elicited chuckles from a preview audience, it confirmed that Morel's movie contained just as much bull as fight.

“The Gunman”

★ ½

Starring: Sean Penn, Jasmine Trinca, Idris Elba, Ray Winstone, Javier Bardem, Mark Rylance

Directed by: Pierre Morel

Other: An Open Road Films release. Rated R for language, sexual situations, violence. 115 minutes