Rated: R | Running Time: 97 Minutes
From: Area 23a
Available on Digital HD, and VOD: March 31, 2017
Get it via : iTunes
While watching “Is That a Gun in Your Pocket?…,” and living in Chicago-land, I couldn’t help but immediately think of the Spike Lee movie “Chi-raq.” Why? Because the basis for the story is the same, built off of the classic, Aristophanes comedy “Lysistrata”: Women withhold sex from their men until there is peace, or in this case, no guns. “Chi-raq” was met with controversy and critical acclaim, but the voting public of IMDB and Rotten Tomatoes didn’t seem to care for it. “Is That a Gun in Your Pocket?…” has most critics seeming to hate it, but the voting public liking it. Weird.
For this movie you get the fictitious town of Rockford, Texas, population 6,969. That should hip you immediately to the kind of humor in the movie. Guess what? The men love their guns. Guess what else they love? Sex. The women are a little miffed at how much the men love their guns, but they are generally happy at home as the men safely have their jobs with the town factory, they get to be homemakers, and they are getting sex, at least when the guys aren’t obsessed with their guns.
As it would be one day Jenna’s (Andrea Anders) son takes a loaded gun to school, almost shoots everyone around him, nails the buttocks of the crossing guard, and Jenna has finally had it with the gun culture of the town. Her ultimatum to her husband, Glenn (Matt Passmore)? Give up the guns, or no sex for Glenn.
At first Glenn is amused, but Jenna is serious, so serious that she begins to rally the rest of the women of the town to withhold sex from their men until the men give up their guns. Men are sexually frustrated, women are sexually frustrated, and hilarity, well, some of it ensues.
Here’s the thing, “Is That a Gun in Your Pocket?…” isn’t the best of films, and a lot of the humor is the slapstick, sexual innuendo kind, which is perfect for me. Sure, you get the point of view that guns are bad, and you get the point that women can be powerful, but the preachiness is toned down with penis jokes and women prancing around in skimpy outfits trying to get their men to give in. And you get Cloris Leachman as the old woman with a potty mouth. Who doesn’t like that?
For me “Is That a Gun in Your Pocket?…” gets 3 1/2 stars out of 5. Easy jokes, women in skimpy outfits, dudes looking like doofuses – take the movie for what it is, don’t look for a masterpiece, and watch it like you’re a twelve year old kid, and you’ll probably enjoy it like I did. If you are looking for a grand, social statement on guns, or an Oscar worthy film, this ain’t it.
That’s it for this one! L8R!!