Listonixio Fresh and Exciting

TaryBiggBall It was OK. I don't see why everyone loves it so much. It wasn't very smart or deep or well-directed.

Gurlyndrobb While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

BelSports This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

VideoEmbolism Because really, the worse thing you can have is stupid people with guns but since this world is essentially stupid (run by gravity and a giant fireball in the sky in a lifeless airless void full of lights that are dead by the time you see them - really?) then chance and the world favour the stupid as is painfully obvious with how many incompetent f**ks are well- established, well-paid, completely useless to anybody except to people as useless as themselves, and spouting off about how great life is, especially in the presence of or directly to anyone not like them, that is anyone smart enough not to eat s**t and train themselves to smile while doing it, anyone smart enough to hate life and define it as a s**tty miserable existence when it does deserve to be, and anyone decent enough not to stick their complacent compromised false sense of satisfaction in the faces of those less fortunate because they're smart enough to care and not be mean hateful f**ks. Well, actually that's the reason smart people use guns against stupid people so I sort of went off the track there.But maybe in essence that is what this film is all about: How the relativity of guns in a moral sense is licensed by the conformity to what is strong and stable in this world but not necessarily right. I mean, how many homeless people in Canada carry guns even as the system they are a part of allows them to die of starvation, exposure, and general genocide as they are effortlessly replaced by more loyal unquestioning 3rd world work whores with convenient language barriers. I'll bet almost none. No protests there folks? Just big happy uncomprehending smiles, eh? And that's right? But everybody knows that Canada is a dictatorship run by cowards that the rest of the world enables. It's common knowledge.Anyways, this doctor realizes the students he stupidly sent out to these primitive villages that are constantly being reaped and pillaged every year (kind of like me except other people call these involuntary patriotic donations "taxes" and are stupid enough to call it "necessary"and "the law" even when they can't afford to pay them - yea, I'm a minimum wage survivor) have disappeared (do you realize the word "disappeared" has two p's instead of two s' - man that's stupid!)and so he goes on a quest to find out what happened. Everywhere he goes he is told by the remaining survivors, or whoever's there, that the men with guns came and killed everybody or took everybody away.That's about it but it's still a pretty good movie. Somehow John Sayles takes this simplistic theme and makes it seem like goddamned brain surgery and if making boring obvious things seem like interesting giant conspiracies isn't the height of modern cinematic magic then I don't know what is. Actually I don't. So take that under advisement.

helpless_dancer Interesting look at how a country torn by revolt affects the plans of a doctor searching for several former students. He has many adventures as he goes deeper into the frenzied bowels of his country. Most of his experiences are negative as he discovers that his rose colored view of home isn't based on reality. A sobering ending put just the right touch to this vividly ugly picture.

FNR_Thomas This movie has some of the most expertly drawn characters I've ever seen in a movie. The acting and writing is absolutely superb. The ending is uplifting, but not sappy or overly sentimental. It's the type of movie that can be watched again and again.

moore2772 Men with Guns is one of the finest films of the genre. It has legs- really stays with you, for years. The priest's story alone is brilliant filmmaking. I've been a great fan of John Sayles' work for many years, but I think this is both his most original and generally best work. The shame is that no one seems to have seen this film. I saw it 3X in theatres and there were never more than 5 people in the audience. MWG doesn't appeal to the short- attention-spaned sex-and-violence cravers. The history of 30 years of terrible civil war as close as Guatemala is something our children remain ignorant about. This incredible film puts that war into unique perspective. Sayles didn't seem to care if too many people saw it or not- subtitles alone guarantee a fringe audience confined to a few art houses. The film is not perfect- editing could be a little better; but what a story! The opening and closing scenes really work for me. I hope everyone reading these comments will go out and rent Men with Guns ASAP. Sayles at his best.