Get The Gringo

Synopsis: Literally crashing through the US-Mexico border after having stolen a sizeable amount of cash, an ageing career criminal (Mel Gibson) is incarcerated in a Tijuana facility which is more like a involuntary favela than anything we might call a prison. There he befriends a 10-year-old boy (Kevin Hernandez) and his mother (Dolores Heredia) who are being victimized by the capo of the inmates, Javi (Gimenez Cacho).

I can’t say that I’m familiar with his back catalogue of action movies, or for that matter action movies per se and perhaps this helped me if not exactly enjoy then at least be intrigued by Mad Mel’s 95 minute rampage. For, from its opening car chase to the closing prison siege that is what his latest film is (there is a tropical isle coda and even that has its violent moment).

The film has been quietly snuck onto our screens, I presume, not because it is bad but because of Gibson’s tainted reputation (I’m not sure if it even got an American release). Given the complete absence of publicity for it I expect it will tail off to nothing quickly but it is worth checking out, for with its south-of-the-border seediness, slo-mo shoot-outs and internecine battles over bags of illegal cash, it has a post-Peckinpah vibe to it that is quite appealing, if that sort of thing appeals. And being a bit of a mash-up it’s got a noirish world weary protagonist trawling the mean streets of this criminal universe in Gibson’s gringo, complete with drily cynical voice-over. Add to this Bernardo Trujillo’s impressive production design and Benoît Debie’s top drawer cinematography and you have got more than most films of this ilk will give you.

Not that this is necessarily going to be an incentive for everybody, but the films of Gibson (and let’s call this a Gibson film as he also co-wrote and co-produced it) that I am familiar with, in particular Apocalypto (2006, and The Passion Of The Christ (2004) have been notable for a rather grisly pre-occupation with pain. That is, not just the typical Hollywood indulgence in cartoon violence but a kind of masochistic identification with physical wounding, which in turn might be interpreted as a very literal preoccupation with mortality. Similarly here, not only do we get blood-splattered point blank executions and a set-piece that has dozens of people killed in slow motion with bullets exploding into eye sockets and breasts, but a particularly gratuitous side-by-side liver transplant (the chances of that taking in real life would be miraculous).

So, once again recalling Peckinpah, one gets the feeling that we are watching a man exorcizing his demons. There appears to be no other point to this oddly off-kilter movie. I guess Gibson has the money to do whatever the hell he wants and given the headlines he's earnt this has hardly been an unalloyed gift.If nothing else Get The Gringo seems to be a testament to that poisoned chalice. 

 

 

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