Harockerce What a beautiful movie!

Grimossfer Clever and entertaining enough to recommend even to members of the 1%

Micah Lloyd Excellent characters with emotional depth. My wife, daughter and granddaughter all enjoyed it...and me, too! Very good movie! You won't be disappointed.

Marva-nova Amazing worth wacthing. So good. Biased but well made with many good points.

sol1218 ****SPOILERS*** Somewhat disjointed movie broken down into three segments about how gun violence changed the lives of a number of Americans who were victimized by them with the exception of the one about gun store owner Carl Wilks played by a snow white haired looking Donald Southerland. It's Wilks who's granddaughter Many-Ann, Linda Cardellini, had undergone a traumatic experience back in her Virginia Collage dorm when her best friend Cicily, Schuyler Fisk, was knocked out by and raped by fellow collage student, Andrew Caple-Shaw, after he slipped a date drug into her drink. The only thing that guns have to do in this segment of the film beside Carl running a gun shop in having him teach Mary-Ann how to properly shoot one and prevent what happened to her friend Cicily not to happen to her.The segment with burnt out inner Chicago high school principal Mr. Carter, Forest Whitaker, is more on the ball in how guns effect those who are involved with them. Trying to keep peace in his school Carter's home life is falling apart with him ignoring his wife and child in order to get honor student Jay, Arlen Escarpeta, to straighten himself out and not keep a gun, which isn't loaded, on him at all times. As we soon find out Jay needed the the gun on his after school job at a gas station and liquor store for protection not to mug or shoot anyone. And as it soon turned out it was in not having that gun on him, during an armed robbery, that almost cost Jay is life!The third and most telling segment has to do with single mom Janet Huttenson, Marcia Gay Harden, who's oldest son Robert participated in a Columbine type high school massacre in Ellisburgh Oragan's Ridgedale High school. It's there where Robert and an equally kill crazy and mentally unstable friend of his gunned down some dozen students before killing themselves before the police could arrest or shot them. There's also local policeman Frank, Tony Goldwyn, who's been living with the guilt of doing nothing to prevent the massacre by standing outside the school, waiting for orders from his superiors, while the massacre was in progress. Besides Janet problems her younger son David, Chris Marquette, is now in danger of being thrown out of the St. Anthony private high school in her not being able to pay his tuition and ending up back in Ridgedale High where his deceased brother Robert gunned down some dozen students!Somewhat confusing but still effective movie in how guns in America have changed the lives of those who both use and are the victims of them. Since the shootings in Virginia Tech in 2007 and the Aurora movie house in Denver Colorado and of course the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre last year the movie is far more timely now then it was when it was released back then in 2005/06. That's when it played in just one theater for 10 weeks and made under $25,000.00 in ticket sales.

kai ringler let's see we've had bang bang you're dead,, elephant,, and now American Gun.. the best performance i thought in this one was of the Principal,, Forest whitaker,, he did a great job.. Marcia Gay Harden did pretty well to i might add,, Nikki Reed plays yet another girl that teases,, except this time she's not as trashy as usual. Donald Sutherland plays the gun shop owner.. this is a tale of 4 different , or maybe 5 different people's point's of view,, it's a complicated web,, sometimes very hard to follow,, i mean yeah you can put 2 and 2 together in this one,, but in order to do that you gotta figure out the timeline of when the events actually occurred.. quentin Tarantino would be proud of all of the scene jumbling in this one. basically you got a school shooting that has apparently already happened,, a principal trying to stop the violence in school,, a smart kid who feels the need to hide a gun on school property.. a mother who is ostracized for not knowing that her son was capable of wiping out students and teachers. a cop who arrived to late to save anyone,, a gun shop owner, who apparently sold the kid the gun,, or maybe his parents,, it was never really explained in the movie.. you got the brother of the shooter, who falls for this little tease... nikki reed, you got neighbors outraged that the mother and the other boy still live in the neighborhood,, fascinating film,,,

LARSONRD Another hard-hitting and thought-provoking drama. Director Aric Avelino examines guns from the perspective of four separate stories: Marcia Gay Hardin as the mother of an Oregon teenager who shot up his school, Columbine-like, and faces guilt and blame and scorn from neighbors, and worry about her other son, who is now the same age as the other brother when he performed his murderous act and suicide; an inner city school principal (excellently played by Forest Whitaker, who I was pleased to see won an Oscar last week for his role as Idi Amin in LAST KING OF Scotland) trying to stay on top of the school's anti-gun policy, with Arlen Escarpeta as an A-student carrying for his mom and family who feels he needs a gun for protection while walking to/from school; Tony Goldwyn as the cop who first arrived on scene at the Oregon school shooting and who faces community/media criticism for delayed response (again, very much based on Columbine); and Linda Cardellini who shines in a very convincing performance as a west coast girl displaced to a Virginia college who is working in her granddad's (Donald Sutherland) gun shot. All of the performances, in fact, are striking and through them the picture really has an emotional impact. The film, without comment, portrays these differing views of gun ownership, gun violence, school shootings, guilt, blame, etc., very nicely filmed and beautifully portrayed, its vignettes and its style leaving the viewer to establish their own viewpoint and opinions. The film keeps its personal viewpoint quiet, instead simply portraying a few aspects of American life impacted by the consequences of guns. Like American HISTORY X, I found this to be a provoking and stimulating drama about reality, choices, consequences, and inevitability, peopled by honest and real characters, superbly portrayed and beautifully composed.

wrlang American Gun is a poorly titled film about how hard life is, and how people cope with tragic events. Parts are a take off of the Columbine massacre and details the lives of people involved before and after a similar event. The alcoholic mother and the brother of one of the killers, a cop that was first on the scene of the event and suffers PTSD. The vengeance oriented psychosis of the poorly equipped neighbors of the killer's family and the general public. A gun store owner and his grand daughter who is uncomfortable around guns but forced (somehow) to work at the gun store, a school principle living in a bad part of town working in a troubled school, some school kids that pass through a bad part of town as part of their daily life. The movie fails miserably trying to blame the lunacy of child killers and violent crime on the availability of guns. Violent and troubled people who want to kill are not logical thinkers; they see only the opportunity for violence and take it whether they use a gun, knife, car, or any other weapon. Not given the opportunity to get a gun, these people will inevitably resort to other methods of killing.