On the long list of Quentin Tarantino knockoffs, MEAN GUNS ranks near the nadir. Pretentious, stylistically vacuous, and numbingly brutal, this cartoonish ode to violence eschews logic, flirts with self-parody, and embraces cliches.
On the eve of the opening of a maximum security prison, syndicate spokesperson Vincent Moon (Ice T) commandeers the facility for a one-night-only killing competition in which the survivior (or survivors) will split a $10,000,000 bounty. The contest is secretly sponsored by the Mob, which actually
expects no one (including Moon) to survive; all are being punished for disloyalty to their employers.
Pooling their resources, pragmati...
Released:
1997
Rated:
R
Length:
110 mins