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THE
MEXICAN
6/10
USA
2001
director : Gore Verbinski
script
: J H Wyman
cinematography : Dariusz Wolski
editing : Craig Wood
lead actors : Brad Pitt, Julia Roberts, James Gandolfini
123 minutes
As
a comic, violent, quirky, character-based, dialogue-heavy, vaguely Tarantino-ish
road movie, mostly set in Mexico, The Mexican has one great thing
going for it – it isn’t The
Way of the Gun.
The
title of Christopher McQuarrie’s self-indulgent variation on similar themes
could fit both movies - Verbinski’s ‘Mexican’ isn’t a man, it’s a priceless
antique pistol, which Jerry (Pitt), a klutzy minor-league crook, is despatched
south of the border to find and bring back to his boss. To sharpen Jerry’s
erratic concentration, his employers hire no-nonsense pro Leroy (Gandolfini)
to kidnap his on-off girlfriend, psychobabble-spouting Sammy (Roberts).
At first, all goes well: Jerry locates the pistol without too much hassle,
and Sammy makes the best of her hostage situation. But it isn’t too long,
of course, before the inevitable movie-ish complications arise…
To
go into exactly how things go awry would be to spoil most of the
fun of what is, for much of its length, an agreeably freewheeling, unpredictable
little movie. Despite the megastar lead couple – who, of course, spend
most of the film apart – this is a relatively low-budget production, with
a nice indie feel to the camerawork and the locations: most of the Mexican
action unfolds in a particularly photogenic little town, accessed via
a spooky road tunnel hacked through the hills. One of the town’s inhabitants
is a fierce but loyal mutt which tags along after Jerry – this doesn’t
add anything to the plot, but it chimes just right with the prevailing
shaggy-dogness of the whole enterprise.
The
tone is larky-deadpan Coenish, without the smart-assness that so often
gets in the way of the brothers’ talents. Gandolfini also appears in their
next movie, The Man Who
Wasn’t There, and at this stage he looks a safe bet to transfer
his Sopranos success to the bigger screen. Pitt and Roberts are
fine (he contributes some nifty physical clowning, she somehow remains
appealing despite her endlessly grating self-help chatter) but the movie
only really makes sense while Gandolfini’s in it, effortlessly projecting
a charismatic blend of strength and vulnerability.
Perhaps
he makes the movie seem better than it really is, because when Leroy exits,
The Mexican suddenly starts to unravel. The already over-complex
plot becomes almost completely incomprehensible as the picture drags on
and on and on, with a last-reel star cameo that just gets in the way.
We yawn, unforgivably, beyond the two-hour mark – all the more frustrating,
when this should, and so easily could, , have been a snappy, edgy 90-minute
blast.
24th
April, 2001
by Neil
Young
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