The Mexican

As was evidenced by his quirkily entertaining first feature, Mouse Hunt (1997), Gore Verbinski is a skilled director with a fluid visual style. Evidently that impressed someone in Dreamworks because he got the job of directing this marquee adventure rom-com.  Something went wrong somewhere however because whilst the script by J. H. Wyman appears to have aspired to a Coen Brothers tongue-in-cheekstyle of off-beatness, Verbinski brings it home in efficiently generic style that eviscerates whatever eccentricity there was on paper.

Brad Pitt plays Jerry Welbach, a bungling criminal who is sent to Mexico to retrieve a rare pistol for a mob boss. His girlfriend, Samantha (Julia Roberts), want to go to Las Vegas and become a croupier so when he tells her he’s going to do one last job she dumps him. He heads down south of the border where things soon start to go wrong.  Meanwhile the mob sends a hitman (James Gandolfini) to kidnap Samantha and hold her hostage just in case Jerry tries to double-cross them. He and Sam become good buddies as they bond over their frustrations with Jerry and the difficulties of long-term relationships.

Julia Roberts was a mistake. Verbinski was presumably given the task of exploiting her good looks and trade-mark smile which he does well but she’s no-one’s idea of white trash. Pitt is not much more credible and his acting is a variant of his 12 Monkeys gesticulatory schtik. Gandolfini is considerably more effective than either although his “sensitivity” is ultimately over-exposed (if you want to see the idea of a philosophic hitman and his mark done much better, check out Real Time, 2008), and eventually the film fades in its latter stages, foundering in the repetitiousness of the character traits and the rambling incomprehensibility of the plot. For Verbinski however the film was no doubt good training and it is little surprise that he went on the helm the choc-top crowd pleaser that was the Pirates Of The Caribbean franchise.

 

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