A film can be knocked off track by its main characters. Even a powerful message and an interesting exploration of an idea can’t overcome protagonists that you relate to nails on a chalkboard. That’s the hole co-writer/director Geoff Marslett finds himself in with Loves Her Gun. After a rooftop concert, Allie  (Trieste Kelly Dunn) is violently mugged in New York and she questions where she lives and who she is with. So she hops in her friend’s band’s mobile home as they head back to Texas. There, she discovering the independent spirit of the lone star state—yet can’t escape her demons. She is sleep deprived and searching for a solution. Medication, booze, and the mixing of the two aren’t helping. That’s when she discovers the gun culture Texas has a reputation for, and things radically change.

Marslett, working off a script he co-wrote with Lauren Modery, never seems to make any strong statements for or against guns. There’s a mixed message and hw easy Allie gets the gun is sad. What it does to her is even more warped. The film builds and builds — we know she’s going to get her gun, but what she does with it we’re never quite sure. While her character is a bit lost without a direction, it’s the two friends she came down with that continued to pester me. Zoe (Ashley Spillers) has gasping-for-air line delivery that makes you want to tell her to simply slow down. Having seen Spillers in another film, I can tell that she doesn’t have an issue with normal delivery. Somewhere, somehow, she got it in her head that that is how Zoe should speak, and here, it nearly drove me up a wall.

Then there is Clark (Francisco Barreiro), who is as cardboard of a man as I’ve seen. He is a pushover and soft-spoken to boot. He likes Allie — we feel that connection from the first time they meet. However, he can never really muster the courage to tell her as much, and instead seems resigned to telling his friends about it. Clark and Zoe are never off screen for any stretch of time, exception for handful of minutes, which means they are a flawed piece of Marslett’s film that you can’t shrug off. Yet, you’re still pulled in because of Allie’s story. We witness her suffering and even we don’t have the answers. There’s a feeling of helplessness as we watch her spiral, find focus, and then spiral again.

For a film that doesn’t seem to have very strong statements about gun control, it does showcase that Sarah (Melissa Bisagni), the woman who introduces Allie to various armed weapons, takes it seriously. We witness her teaching Allie how to safely handle a weapon, and to never point the gun at anyone you don’t intend to harm. She shows respect for the weapon, and yet she hands it over to a woman she knows isn’t quite stable. One interesting aspect that is touched upon with certainty is drunk driving, though.

Clark and Zoe are getting hammered at a bar at one point and after asking for the check, the bartender responds by saying that he wants Clark’s keys. This is something I’ve never seen happen, yet wish happened more often. Ultimately, Loves Her Gun can be infuriating because of its characters, but also due to failing to deliver a strong message for or against gun culture. Perhaps that’s part of what Marslett is going for, as gun safety is as hot a topic as it gets and easy answers are hard to come by. Yet, watching what amounts to a spark for discussion shouldn’t be this hard to enjoy.

Grade: C

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