Woeful limpid, cliché laden lard, THE GUNMAN is like a celluloid midlife crisis writ large across the big screen.

Sean Penn has buffed up to play Jim Terrier, who at the beginning of the picture is a mercenary who is having a torrid affair with a doctor in the Congo. Trouble is he is the designated trigger on an assassination of a government minister and on completion of the kill, he must vanish from the continent without saying his goodbyes to the medico.

Several years later, in a platitude of penance for this vile act, we find him digging wells in another African state, but this time he is the target of a hit. Using his skills, he escapes, ending up in London, where he makes contact with Stanley, an old colleague. Stanley reveals that a price has indeed put on his head.

Putting two and two together, Terrier tracks down the crew the from his Congo days and discovers his lost love has married Felix, one of the facilitators of the assassination.

It’s interesting to note that the film is directed by Pierre Morel, who launched the Taken franchise and catapulted a middle aged Liam Neeson into the action man genre. It seems Sean was taken with Taken and wanted to see if Morel could work his magic on this fifty something year old actor.

Morel actually does the best he can with the material which is so ham-fistedly written that the telegraphing is onerous and tempers the tension.

At least the locations are interesting, especially Barcelona and Gibraltar, the travelogue being the perhaps the most consistently good thing about this ungainly enterprise.

And the morals are muddied as Terrier ratchets up the body count while masquerading as an humanitarian NGO.

Based on a novel by Jean-Patrick Manchette, the script is credited to Don McPherson, who penned the vapid big screen take on the Sixties spy spoof, The Avengers. Sean Penn also gets a producer’s credit, so there is a lot resting on his broad, buffed shoulders.

Sean Penn’s body of work speaks for itself, but his actual body seems to be the focus here. Torso over talent.

Javier Badem as Felix, coasts through the histrionics, as do Ray Winstone, Mark Rylance, Idris Elba and Jasmine Trinca.

THE GUNMAN amounts to a little more than a sorry two hour public audition by Sean Penn for a spot in the next The Expendables sortie.