John Sayles’s “Men with Guns”

“Before Kevin Smith maxed out his credit cards, before there was an Independent Film Channel or a Sundance festival, and long before independent film became a “marketing niche” there was John Sayles, making it happen with a combination of talent, shrewdness, and determination.” (Retrospective 1). People have been praising his work for years now. The film I’d like to talk about is, Men With Guns. It was a well-filmed movie and written great.

         The first thing I’d like to talk about was how the movie was filmed. I personally being an amateur filmmaker can appreciate how the movie was filmed. Due to this I notice how the movie was shot. The film angles he used were great. My favorite is scene that I’d like to talk about is the scene when the doctor goes to the “school” where he found the human remains, and he picks up the skull with the bullet hole in it. I like how the camera angle is when he’s holding the skull, like how it’s like a first person view through the doctor’s eyes. The next thing I’d like to bring up is the lighting of the whole movie. The lighting sets the tone of the whole movie. With the yellowish, almost sepia tone almost sets you in to the mood that the doctor is in, that troubled almost uneasy feeling. The film grain of the movie also adds to this effect, because the grain adds to the mood of the whole thing. It gives everything more of the run down dirty feeling that the villages and towns in the movie had. John also likes to use actors he’s worked with before, because they know how he works, and he knows how they work. (Enders 1)

         Men With Guns was a well-written movie. John Sayles approach of telling the story was great, along with his character development. Dr. Fuentes’s need to make sure his legacy continued is what pushed him to go from village to village to find any of his old students, and even though in every town he found a disappointment either by finding out they left or had been killed, he wouldn’t give up. In fact every disappointment caused him to work harder at finding one of his students. Due to the experiences from his trip he started to learn about the truth of his country. He thought it was perfect, and Dr. Fuentes found out otherwise. The next character I’d like to bring up is the former soldier. When the former soldier is first introduced he is a hard ass. He takes the money the doctor and the boy have, and leaves them stranded, soon after the he returns with a gunshot wound and needs help from Dr. Fuentes. Due to the injury he is forced to bring the doctor and the boy with him. As time goes on you can see he did many horrible things as a soldier, but as time goes on in the movie you notice a change and he starts to care about the others not just him self. Ironically at the end of the movie he actually becomes the doctor’s legacy, and starts to help the natives with his knowledge as a medic. The last character I’d like to bring up is “The Ghost” also known as Padre Portillo. The Padre was ashamed of himself of how he let the village he served down, and because of this he lost his faith. After running into the doctor, boy, and the former soldier they caused him to gain his faith back, and he sacrificed himself to help the others move on, especially the former soldier. I like how John Sayles keeps pushing the timeline forward from village to village and keeps giving the doctor hope that maybe his legacy has moved on. It almost keeps you on the edge of your seat hoping, and wishing that the doctor will be thrown a bone, and he’ll find someone still around.

         Even with the Spanish dialog, and having to read the subtitles, you can enjoy this movie. Some critics believe that the film was more of a message than a drama (Armstrong 1); I believe that it was both. I not only enjoyed the film, it is an inspiration to amateur filmmakers like myself, especially since he’s from Central New York too.

Works Cited

Armstrong, Richard. “John Sayles” Senses of Cinema, Febuary 2004

Enders, Eric. The John Sayles Stock Company. 2002-2005,

John Sayles Retrospect, Sayles IFC Retrospective, 2002,