Award-Winning Columbia Faculty Film Now Available On-Demand

Campus Communications Staff / Apr 02, 2024

young man and a woman in car“Good Guy with a Gun” follows the story of Will and his mother, who move to a small town after the violent death of the teenage boy’s father. Angry and insecure, Will finds solace in new friendships, but his deepening journey into local gun culture further fractures his relationship with his mother.
“Good Guy with a Gun,” written and directed by John Mossman, former adjunct professor of instruction at Columbia College Chicago, and produced by Kevin Cooper, an associate professor at Columbia, was recently purchased by Freestyle Digital Media and is now available on demand.

Earlier this year, Freestyle Digital Media — a digital film distribution division of Byron Allen’s Media Group — acquired the North American video-on-demand rights to the award-winning rural coming-of-age action/thriller “Good Guy with a Gun,” which was written and directed by John Mossman, former adjunct professor of instruction at Columbia College Chicago, and produced by Kevin Cooper, an associate professor at Columbia.  Deanna Cooper, also an adjunct faculty member at the time the film was made, was also a producer. 

The film is now available on Amazon's Prime Video and Apple iTunes. A DVD version of the film is available to pre-order at Walmart.com, Amazon.com, and Barnes & Noble. It earned many accolades and it was accepted into more than 50 film festivals, Cooper says, including being named the Best Dramatic Feature Film at the Arizona International Film Festival.  

“While there are a handful of films that are made in Chicago, we're proud to have gotten worldwide distribution for this Chicago-based film and all the awards it has won,” Cooper says.  

"Good Guy with a Gun” features critically acclaimed Chicago actors David Pasquesi (“Veep”), Steppenwolf’s Ian Barford, and legendary Mumblecore director Joe Swanberg. The film follows the story of Will and his mother, who move to a small town after the violent death of the teenage boy’s father. Angry and insecure, Will finds solace in new friendships, but his deepening journey into local gun culture further fractures his relationship with his mother and complicates his grief. Realizing the dangerous direction in which he’s headed, he desperately tries to reverse course, taking him down a path of unanticipated consequences. Challenging the black and white concept of good guy/bad guy, the story explores the complex gray area lacking in the current American dialogue surrounding not just guns but many aspects of life deserving of a more nuanced discussion. 

Watch the trailer here. 

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