Peter Dunn has a problem. He’s an artist. A writer. And apparently a very talented one at that. So talented that his wife Molly (Kate Ashfield) told him to just sit down and write. He did, and as with so many artists – he got lost in it. She’s kicked him out because somewhere in his passion for parchment and quill, he’s forgotten that he has a family. She’s frustrated because she’s lost her husband to his writing and he's frustrated because he now obviously realizes what he had. He’s living in squalor. All he wants to do is come home. His wife apparently refuses to talk to him. So he’s bought himself a .38 caliber King's Cross Special and is playing a dangerous drunken game of Russian Roulette with it. He pulls the trigger the first time and when the gun doesn't go off I was relieved – but then I realized that a .38 snubnose generally holds 5 – and he has 4 shots left. You see him attempt another drunken conversation with the wife who obviously still won't speak to him. Again the gun gets pointed at his head. Pulling the trigger would have left him with 3 shots. You just know you’re going to see him with this thing leveled at his head a few more times. And you honestly don't know how many times he has pulled the trigger. 

He appears in traffic the next day very obviously frustrated, exhausted and hungover. Someone blows their horn, someone else assumes incorrectly that it was him and tries to start a fight. After the guy beats on his car and challenges him, he emerges from his vehicle with the gun. He points it at the bully and then points it at his own head. The bully runs. I'd have run too. Very far away. This is obviously some loony with a death wish here.  

He makes his way to his wife’s house and in order to gain entrance and have a conversation – he puts the weapon to his head again. She all but dares him to pull the trigger. She lets him in but promptly snatches the weapon as soon as he lays it on the table, places it against her own temple and pulls the trigger.  2 shots left. These are two, not only very emotional, but very angry people here. Which of course makes me feel sorry for the child. His wife vents and explains her frustration, which helps us to understand the opening segment of the film. She has had enough. She has been patient for 8 years - waiting for him to realize his dream and she is tired. 

Cut to the publicists office. In stereotypical fashion she is all but ignoring him and even addresses him as the office assistant or custodial staff or something similar. He attempts to be polite . It doesn't work. Enraged at being ignored – he disconnects her phone conversation and out comes the gun again. Now that he has her undivided attention he discovers that she absolutely loves his manuscript and has been trying to reach him all morning so that a deal can be struck. He didn’t answer his mobile because he broke it in a fit of rage. You finally see the weight come off his shoulders as he collapses on the floor.

He goes to pick up his daughter (Lauren Cooke Gannon) from school and is in a far lighter mood. All of his work has paid off. His daughter is a bit perplexed to see him but he accepts her sour mood and questions with grace. He promises to change and that is good enough for her. He places her in his car and goes to make a phone call which is obviously about returning the gun. While he’s talking his daughter finds the weapon in the glove box. She does what most curious children who know nothing about guns would do. She plays with it, points it at herself and pulls the trigger. I was hysterical by this point – knowing how many shots were left. The gun mercifully doesn’t go off. But the scene was drawn out just long enough by the director to make anybody watching an absolute basket case. There’s just one shot left. One with a bullet as they say.

His daughter continues to play with the gun. She blissfully points it away from herself so that it points towards to car door. The second he realizes that she has found it, she pulls the trigger again and the gun explodes. Unfortunately, Peter is standing in the line of fire just to the other side of the car and the bullet catches him square in the gut. The last shot is of him lying on the sidewalk bleeding all over the place. Dying is what he originally wanted to do, or is it?

God! What a moving piece. Please! is a short film and only 15 minutes long but I was glued to it as if watching one that was 2 hours long. Gerry's characterization is brilliant here and it grabbed me the second he opened his mouth. I wanted to find out what it was that caused this man's life to fall so completely and utterly apart and when I did, I truly felt sorry for him. That someone would be driven to suicide is truly tragic - but when you feel that no one is listening to what you have to say - some people are driven beyond anger and outrage to suicide. The character is not helpless - just angry and depressed. Everything that he has asked for before has been ignored, so now each he time he asks and says "please" it is punctuated with a gun. The only time it is not - is when he is with his daughter near the end of the film.

This film was made in 1999 at the beginning of Gerry's acting career and if I has seen it in 1999 I would have known then that he had tremendous potential. I didn't. Knowing what I know of his acting style and the fact that he admits that he draws from past experience to create his roles - I really don't want to know where this one came from. To see him portray an individual so angry with life that he would consider suicide a pleasant alternative sent shivers right up my spine. Not because the thought of suicide creeps me out - but because knowing that that character came from some past experience of Butler's, it puts me in sheer awe of the strength he had to have overcome his demons and get to where he is today. And then be able to re-visit them to create a character such as Peter? I honestly don't know if I could do something like that.   

Suicide is a very personal thing, and in some cases it occurs because no one has listened to that individuals cries for help, and while the reasons for suicide vary greatly, there are a few frequent conditions and circumstances that seem to lead people to take such severe measures: disappointment, rejection, failure, or loss such as a breaking up or divorce, or family upheaval. Substance abuse and mental issues comes into play here, and those with drug or alcohol problems and mental problems usually have difficulty dealing with such pressures. Suicide becomes a "permanent" solution to what may only be a temporary problem.

Of course one could say that the film makes a good case for gun control as well - not to mention being a responsible parent, but if you understand the character, then you understand why he behaves the way that he does. He's obviously bought the gun under shady circumstances - so gun control goes right out the window there, and he hasn't had to be a parent for a while and thus probably has forgotten about things like keeping loaded guns away from small children.

At the beginning of this film, Gerry portrayed Peter as someone who was unable to recognize that his life could turn around. When it did - the irony is that he gets shot anyway. This is another film to add to my list of tearjerkers. Not because I'm a Gerard Butler fan, but because the character is so wonderfully developed that he drew me in and hooked and made me understand why he had gone a little nuts and bought the gun. You wanted things to get better for this man and just when I thought that they had, it was all ripped from him again. I understood the drinking and the physically violent anger, the screaming and finally the dissolving into tears. I also understood the fetal position that he is curled into on the bed. This was a man who was so caught up in trying to be successful so he could have his life back, that he was willing to end it if deemed a failure.

It is characters like this that grab you in just a few short minutes, drag you in and leave you with white knuckles, and tears streaming down your face, that are proof of what good acting is about. It is these roles, independent films like Dear Frankie, and Please! - films done for art, rather than for money, where Gerry truly shines. They are not about the bottom line box-office figures - they are about creating characters that people will understand, and about bringing an idea to life. At the end of the day, film is an simply an art form and Gerry truly is an artist in front of the camera.