ComingSoon Editor-in-Chief Tyler Treese spoke to Gunner director Dimitri Logothetis about working with stars Luke Hemsworth and Morgan Freeman. The action movie will be available to own on digital and in select Regal Theaters on August 16.
“War veteran Colonel Lee Gunner takes his two sons on a camping trip with their uncle Jon, to reconnect with them after being at the battle front for so long. The trip goes awry when Jon stumbles over a tripwire and sets off an explosion, alerting a gang of violent bikers in the midst of a massive drug operation. Not anticipating Gunner’s elite combat skills, the gang members are taken out one by one. The boys try to go for help, but end up right in the arms of Dobbs, the son of kingpin Kendric Ryker who runs the organization from prison. With no one but himself to turn to, an enraged Gunner wreaks havoc to rescue his two sons, until he gets to the top and confronts Ryker. You don’t cross Gunner,” says the synopsis.
Tyler Treese: We get a really fun performance here by Morgan Freeman. I was glad we get to see more of him in the second act, and there’s actually a good bit of him in Gunner. He’s still just completely with it and even menacing at his age. How was it working with him? He is a living legend.
Dimitri Logothetis: Oh, it’s wonderful. I wanted to pick somebody to play the bad guy that’s likable and I didn’t think he could do better than picking God. He’s just wonderful to work with. He is very serious about his craft. He’s always prepared, and he’s a lot of fun on set. He really jokes around and plays around, and he’s willing to do whatever it takes to make the character work.
Gunner is a lot of fun with the action sequences, especially.There’s this one fight in the woods with the two women, who are very acrobatically using each other’s bodies to fight Luke. I thought that was an incredible sequence. How was it just upping that attitude for the fight scenes because they’re very off the wall and fun to watch?
Well, so I use my same stunt team that I’ve been using for the last several years on all my films. I developed this stunt team in Thailand when I rebooted the Kickboxer franchise years ago. So they’ve come with me and they bring a unique martial art to the screen, which is muay Thai. It’s a completely different martial art. It’s a very aggressive martial art, and it’s a very cinematic martial art, if you will.
So we rehearse all that stuff way in advance, a few months in advance. We refine it, and then when we bring it to set. Everybody knows what they’re about to do. So, really, I try to push the envelope as much as I can. I think that’s probably the scene that you picked out where I push it all the way, and hopefully, it works, and everybody has fun watching it, you know?
Luke gets to show his full range here because there’s also a pretty more serious character-driven drama with the family. How is it kind of balancing those energies? Because they’re very different from the action sequences.
Well, you have to take a risk. He can’t slight the character. He has to be serious. He is going to retrieve his kids. On the other hand, you have to be entertaining, I think. So, I do the best I can at balancing both those. I think we managed to pull it off in this film.
You’ve worked with some really top-notch actors in the past, especially when it comes to action films. What really stood out about Luke Hemsworth and getting to see him in action? He really holds his own here.
I’ve been following his career for quite some time, and I’ve been trying to figure out a character that he’d be really good in. I sought him out in this particular film. Nobody offered him up. I went to chase him down, and I just thought he’d be terrific as this, this, uh, uh, particular character. Once he read the script, he responded, he called, and then we talked about it, and I was just thrilled that he decided to do it.
