Fuqua, who happens to be surprisingly good with actors, does have a knack for chaos.
Here that disorder extends to the story, which combines a live-free-or-die vibe with some deep-fried gun-and-flag fetishism for the usual love-it-or-leave-it, lock-and-load, make-my-day Hollywood jumble. Bob Lee Swagger's name is obviously meant to evoke Lee Harvey Oswald, much like the image of a rifle pointed in the direction of an American president. But it's tough to figure out how these historically saturated allusions to the Kennedy assassination fit with the angry talk about Congress. In the end all we know about Bob Lee Swagger is that, like the adorable FBI agent (Michael Pena) hot and cold on his trail, he is a good man. Which is perhaps all that we are ever meant to know when an American holds a gun.
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