After the excellent Fight Club, and being the only one to walk away from Snatch looking good, Brad Pitt has become someone to watch recently. Meanwhile Julia Roberts, no doubt encouraged by her Erin Brokovitch-Oscar, seems to be avoiding rom-coms for the time being. Neither of them have anything to be proud of here, however.
Pitt plays Jerry, Roberts his girlfriend, Sam. They are split up early in the movie, as Jerry, a reluctant small-time criminal, has to go to Mexico. There he must retrieve an ornate antique pistol (the Mexican of the title). Which carries a terrible curse. In the meantime Sam is kidapped by a hitman sent by Jerry's boss. It all sounds quite good on paper, and the two leads took massive pay cuts to star in what would otherwise have been a small indie film. Somehow, despite the odds being stacked in its favour, the movie just does not work. It desperately wants to be an edgy, quirky black comedy. It just quickly becomes boring though. There are a few, isolated, lonely moments of humour.
There is far too much reliance on the star's presence and charisma. It seems that Brad is only as good as his material though, or he was having an off-day. Julia is just incredibly annoying. It seems like the only effort she made was to shave her armpits for once. Its a mystery why Jerry is so concerned about her leaving him. All she does throughout the entire movie is whinge at him. When her kidnapper (James Gandolfini) turns out to be gay, they quickly become girlfriends and she goes on incessantly about her relationship with this loser Jerry. No matter what goes on around her. Like most women she seems to think that this will be of great interest to everyone around her.
The whole movie is misconceived, with only moments that are funny, dramatic or poignant, nowhere near enough to sustain its unnecessary length. Occasionally, a very minor character will pop up all too briefly to easily outshine the stars. All the analysis of Jerry and Sam's relationship get in the way of what scant interesting plot there is. 3/10 |
