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Mexican......... |
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Movie Review: Mexican
Starring: Brad Pitt, Julia
Roberts, James Gandolfini, J.K. Simmons
Director: Gore Verbinski
(2001) |
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The Mexican, directed by Gore Verbinski, is a romantic
action comedy starring Brad Pitt as a clumsy |
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bagman, and Julia Roberts as his frustrated girlfriend.
Forced into accepting one final assignment from his criminal boss --who has threatened to
kill him if he does not comply-- Jerry (Pitt) naturally chooses to decline the untimely
ultimatum posed by his angered girlfriend Samantha (Roberts). Samantha threatens to leave
Jerry if he does not immediately |
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abandon his risky job, and she quickly dismisses the death
threat as a fabrication of Jerry's dishonesty, cowardice, and overall lack of commitment.
Falling victim to an extreme lack of communication, each goes on a different
direction: Samantha sets on a getaway trip to Las Vegas, while Jerry's mission takes |
him to a dismal town near Toluca, Mexico, where he must
concentrate on locating and retrieving a legendary pistol known as "The
Mexican". Not surprisingly, their paths are marked by a series of complications:
while Jerry competes with the locals who are also fiercely determined to possess The
Mexican, Samantha is kidnapped by Leroy (James Gandolfini), a hitman intent on indirectly
pressing Jerry to complete his mission.
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The Mexican clearly establishes its protagonist as a victim of circumstances,
whose lack of maliciousness endangers his mission as well as his life. Often amusingly
portrayed by Pitt, Jerry's inadequacy is stressed |
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by highlighting his foreignness within the isolated and
hostile Mexican town, where the character is again constrained by an inability to
communicate (by either not speaking the language or not understanding a particular
situation). On the other hand, The Mexican focuses on the character's female counterpart
in order to demonstrate the positive results of effective communication. This is
--sometimes humorously, other times dramatically-- |
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explored in the unlikely relationship that evolves between Samantha and Leroy,
who after spending many hours together on the road, develop a sensitive awareness of each
other's emotional needs. This parallel plot successfully depicts a displacement of the
bonding that the Jerry/Samantha couple desperately needs. In spite of this strength, The
Mexican often falls victim to its own silliness, which prevents its actors from exploring
bolder representations of their characters. Therefore, The Mexican is most successful in
those scenes where its actors fall on either end of the spectrum of comedic to dramatic
representations.
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