Pick up a gun, make a little movie

Funny, but the last two movies I’ve seen involve protagonists who have military pasts and who use violent means to achieve their ends.

The first was “Harry Brown,” a little “Death Wish” type of movie that played for a short while at the Magic Lantern. My wife, curious about the Red Box in front of our neighborhood Roasuer’s, picked it up for less than $2. And we watched it.

Michael Caine plays a 70-something pensioner who, upon the death of his wife and his best friend, takes up arms against a sea of troubles — the troubles being a local gang of toughs who terrorize the neighborhood. Caine is great, and the movie starts out strongly. But the slight story does little that is much different from what the Michael Winner/Charles Bronson series did in 1974 .

All the way through I kept thinking, the Italians are giving us films such as “Gomorrah” and this is the best the Brits can do?

The second, George Clooney starring in “The American,” features the former “E.R” star as a nonsmiling, lonely and dangerous guy who kills people for a living. When he himself is targeted, he hides out in an Italian two ( i n Abruzzo) and agrees to work on a job that, as things turn out, he wants to make his final play. Uh-oh.

Clooney is a bit glum, though his tats look cool. But the screenplay is a tad underdeveloped, giving us no reason why anyone would be targeting Clooney’s character, why he would gun down an innocent woman during an assassination attempt or why no Italian cops ever show up even when the bodies starts to pile up. “The American” looks decent enough, and has me wanting to drive down through that part of Italy, but there’s just not enough there, uh, there.

You know what, though? I have this hankering to visit the shooting range. Can’t imagine why.

Below : The trailer for “Harry Brown.”