Product Details

• Actors: Diane Lane, James LeGros, Stephen Collins, Tess Harper, Bruce Altman
• Directors: Stacy Cochran
• Writers: Stacy Cochran
• Producers: Becky Arntzen, Harold Welb, Lydia Dean Pilcher, Michael Flynn, Miles A. Copeland III
• Format: Color, Dolby, NTSC
• Rated: R (Restricted)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Sony Pictures
• VHS Release Date: June 13, 2000
• Run Time: 99 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 6302906202
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #352,028 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Debbie (Diane Lane) is the wife of a blandly good-looking doctor (Stephen Collins), and lives in a New Jersey suburb where the houses back up to a golf course and all look the same. She has an offbeat yet friendly goofball neighbor named Skippy (James LeGros), but that's about the only weird thing that intrudes on her pastel-perfect life. That is, until her husband brings home a handgun--for her own protection, of course--and then things get very chaotic very quickly. Skippy "borrows" the handgun for purposes unknown, Debbie's husband shoots himself in the foot (and gets food poisoning to boot), and suddenly Debbie finds her life turned upside down by Skippy's mysterious motivations, which turn decidedly romantic. Plus, it looks as if somebody wants to do Skippy and his space-cadet mother (Tess Harper) serious harm, and Debbie may be in the way.

Stacy Cochran's debut feature is a wonderful slice of independent-film life, back in the days of the early '90s, when independent movies were about quirky characters and amiably meandering plots, not about sexy, slicked-up "Will it sell at Sundance?" panache. Her deadpan writing and directing style is reminiscent of cult fave Hal Hartley, but without the willful and calculated weirdness. My New Gun is more organic, the plot slowly growing out of the wry situations and idiosyncratic characters, from protoslacker Skippy, whom LeGros invests with boy-next-door sweetness and slightly dangerous sexiness, to Debbie's lone female friend, Myra (Maddie Corman), a blushing bride-to-be who can't even drink alcohol at her own wedding reception. As Debbie, Lane (the model turned actress of The Outsiders and Rumble Fish) gives a standout performance of one woman's awakening to her less-than-perfect life. This film marked a new beginning for an underrated actress who consistently delivers spellbinding performances (A Walk on the Moon, Lonesome Dove)--she's a phenomenal talent to watch. And look for Philip Seymour Hoffman (Magnolia) in a small part as Skippy's fast-food coworker. --Mark Englehart

From The New Yorker

The heroine of Stacy Cochran's movie is a young New Jersey housewife named Debbie Bender (Diane Lane), whose husband buys her a revolver she doesn't want. This husband, Gerald (Stephen Collins), is a smug radiologist who dominates his wife completely: when he announces that the Bender household-a condo overlooking a golf course-needs a firearm, that's it. Cochran's screenplay delights in fouling up the audience's expectations. It constructs a kind of inverted pyramid of unlikeliness, the whole thing balanced, precariously, on the initial absurdity of Gerald's decision. The real subject of the picture is Debbie's changing relationship to the circumstances of her life, and especially her marriage. The gun itself is a little more than a pretext and a lot less than a symbol: it serves mostly to get her involved in the mysterious life of her across-the-street neighbor, Skippy (James LeGros), a scruffy, shifty-eyed young man who has a big crush on her. LeGros is wonderfully sly and seductive, and Diane Lane's delicately funny performance conveys the movie's exploratory sensibility with thrilling clarity: she makes us feel the risky joy of venturing beyond your own narrow plot and becoming a part of someone else's story. Cochran-a recent film-school graduate-gives the dull suburban setting a surprising richness and beauty. Her condoland isn't a satirist's world, or a cartoonist's, or a fairy-tale teller's; it's more like a novelist's. Yet the sort of liberation that this picture proposes, and embodies, is the product of a true filmmaker's vision. Also with Tess Harper, Maddie Corman, Bruce Altman, and Bill Raymond. Ed Lachman's cinematography is terrific. -Terrence Rafferty
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Get "Gun", November 30, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: My New Gun [VHS] (VHS Tape)

I have watched the video of "My New Gun" three times, and each time I have discovered more interesting, telling details. The plot doesn't drive the film; instead, it seems to evolve almost by happenstance from the characters themselves. Although there is no "crack-me-up" humor at all, if you think about what is going on as it happens, this movie is hilarious. Diane Lane, James LeGros, and Stephen Collins all shine.

8 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great acting by Hollywood's most underated actress..., August 17, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: My New Gun [VHS] (VHS Tape)

I saw this movie without really knowing what it was about and was completely suprised by how good it is. Diane Lane, who is not only beautiful, but talented, plays a yuppie housewife who is given a gun by her husband. After she gets her neighbor involved, James Legros, they embark on series of strange, and mysterious events. This movie won best picture at the Sundance film festival in 1992, and is worth renting, but don't buy unless it's under $20. Diane Lane is truly underated in Hollywood and "My New Gun" proves why.

10 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Diane is wonderful, September 23, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: My New Gun [VHS] (VHS Tape)

I agree with the previous reviewer. Diane Lane is better than most of the actresses out there. She was a gifted child actress and has continued to shine over the years. Please Hollywood, stop casting the same familiar actresses (Roberts, Diaz, Barrymore). There's nothing wrong with them at all, but Diane deserves to be there too!