I didn't see it as ham-fisted, since that was the entire concept of the movie -- in fact, one of the pitch CONCEPTS was "what if a gun could think". He was a weapon. Was that ALL he was, or was that what he had to be? That was the key theme. A gun by itself is a tool. A self-mobile gun with no morality is a force of terrifying destruction. A person isn't a gun, even if that person was built AS a gun.