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The Mexican

The Mexican

List Price: $26.99
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Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Slow
Review: I kept looking at my watch to see how long it had been ... generally, not a good sign! Definitely disappointing since I like Julia Roberts.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Mixed feelings
Review: I enjoyed the majority of this movie, but there were some big holes in this movie. There is no doubt that James Gandolfini steals this movie as the homosexual hitman. This is a great character. The script is very well written, but it reaches a point where it stretches a bit long. You start to say, "Ok that's enough, how much more do you have to put these people through?" Julia Roberts was a sweetheart, like always, but Brad Pitt was a little to stupid for my liking. I really don't think a crime boss would but this guy in charge of something this important. My favorie scene is Nayman's huge speech explaining what Jerry has to do. This is a great, great speech; worthy of a college student to do it for an Acting 1 monologue.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Edgy, zesty, sexy!
Review: The Mexican has everything going for it - a fun, edgy story; cool leads; heaps of funny, impossible situations and groovy tunes. It is everything I wanted out of a day's entertainment, it's exactly what I was in the mood for. Something not too serious, but still contains drama, while also mixing strong elements of comedy in, too. Okay, I'll admit the film is way over-long and not exactly what I expected, but with the two zesty personalities of the lead actors (Julia Roberts and Brad Pitt - both superb). All in all, The Mexican is an unpredictable, uncontrolled and endlessly entertaining comedy-thriller that hits the mark enough to please any audience.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: THE FUNNIEST MOVIE I'VE EVER SEEN!!!
Review: This is a great movie. Brad Pitt plays an average dorky guy, he's a lowman in a mob, and he travels to Mexico where he acts like a typical ignorant American tourist while interacting with all sort of Mexicans who enforce Brad Pitt's role as a dork... If that isn't funny I don't know what is. Don't see this movie to see Julia Roberts, go see it to see Brad Pitt and all of the Mexican extras!

Also the muscle car enthusist may appriciate the scene where Brad Pitt goes to a Mexican Car Rental lot to pick out a "Mexicanish" car for his mission, there they have many cleeeean late 1960s Cameros El Caminos and Chevelles.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Shame Dreamworks Shame
Review: An insipid movie at best. Pitt and Roberts have obviously been slapped together for some kind of money maker. The Mexican feels like a bad episode of Friends crossed with one of those post Tarantino, rubbish gangster films. Three things tricked me into seeing this movie, the Dreamworks logo (usually reliable) the name of Lawrence Bender and many good reviews, one even saying this was the best crime film since Out of Sight. Hardly. I enjoy long films when they are good, The Mexican was long, flat and boring at just over 2 hours. Studio notes were stuck all over The Mexican and you could see the committee behind every decision, surprisingly though the dialogue was left in long winded flat monologues which made for tedious viewing. People wanting to structure dialogue like Tarantino or Kevin Smith should be first talented. Attempted jokes were simple and had me coughing dust off them. The Mexican tried to be multi-layered but succeeded in making the stories involved way to distant and the director (who should go back to directing kids films) didn't have any idea how to better relate them. Oh and let me not forget what will be the new Hollywood cliche of the future, the unexpected gay character. I found the dog mildly amusing but I could see the feel good committee behind him also. The Mexican may well mark the film where Dreamworks went from a company with vision, to just another big, blundering studio.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: James gandolfini's "The Mexican"
Review: WARNING: CONTAINS SPOILER

The usual way for an actor to steal a film is to over-act shamelessly. In 'The Mexican' however James Gandolfini walks away with the show simply by being the only actor not to showboat. Apparently Julia Roberts and Brad Pitt took big pay cuts to make 'The Mexican' because they liked the script so much. Sadly the script doesn't seem quite so keen on them. Both are cast against type (Not a good idea if, like these two, you don't have much range), and as a result spend two hours saying "Look at us, we're playing against type." Roberts (a performer who does most of her acting with her teeth) is Sam, a self-obsessed, shrewish hysteric. Brad Pitt is Jerry, her boyfriend, an incompetent moron, who runs odd jobs for the mob. This is played for laughs, just as well as he wouldn't last till lunchtime with real gangsters. Faced with playing these two caricatures Pitt and Roberts resort to wild mannerisms and shameless mugging in a futile attempt to hold our attention. Fortunately the tooth-some two spend little time on screen together, as they generate little heat between them. As one final job he is sent south of the border to retrieve a legendary pistol, 'The Mexican' of the title. Needless to say he screws up. Why he has to undertake this mission at all is never explained, 'The Mexican' is being held by the mob-bosses grandson. Couldn't they just ask him to bring it home? Why send someone as incompetent as Jerry to undertake this important mission is also left unexplained. Sam, failing to appreciate that Jerry isn't just being selfish in choosing to go rather than get his head blown off, high-tails it to Las Vegas. No sooner has she set off than she is kidnapped by 'Leroy' in order to ensure that Jerry remains compliant. Leroy, played by James Gandolfini (Julia Roberts was instrumental in getting him cast, and in this - if not her own performance - she does the film a great service), is the one recognizably human character. Instead of the frantic arm waving of the purported stars what we get from Gandolfini is a subtle, nuanced performance. By turns funny, touching and brave, Gandolfini unfortunately highlights the absence of these qualities in the rest of the film. It is surely down to Gandolfini's skill that we care about Leroy at all, as the script doesn't give him much to do but trade therapy-speak with Sam. Leroy, as much as Sam and Jerry, is a walking, talking cliché: He's gay so he must be sensitive; He contemplates giving up being a hit man as soon as he finds love; he is full of self-hatred; like any gay character in a mainstream film, he does not get a happy ending. It is hard not to believe that Leroy is gay just to try and make the film seem more hip, but this is a misnomer, as his newfound love for Frank - unlike that between Sam and Jerry - is not held to be of any great importance. Yet it is this brief relationship that provides the only moments of true emotion, Gandolfini is heartbreaking in these scenes, as Leroy finds and then loses love. Never resorting to the sort of weep-fest that Oscar voters love so much, Leroy - realizing Frank's death - exacts his revenge and moves on, brokenhearted but stoic. It is this disparity between the two couples that underscores the shallowness of the whole enterprise. Sam, for all her psychobabble, has no real idea of love beyond her own self-absorption. When Jerry kills Leroy she protests "But he was my friend." but has forgotten him by the next scene. We are expected to side with Jerry for killing Leroy, for it turns out that Jerry had already met the real Leroy and this wasn't him. This Leroy is really Winston (in an earlier scene when Sam sees the name tattooed on his arm 'Leroy' dismisses Winston as being someone he hates), and his intention was to steal 'The Mexican' for a rival gang. This sole fact is supposed to undercut the validity of 'Leroy/Winston' as a likable character. Why? He pretended to be someone else but his personality was true, and it was this, which made him the emotional core of the film. That Leroy isn't Leroy is supposed to be a twist, but you can see it coming over the horizon. When Sam finds out Gandolfini's name is Leroy she is surprised, isn't Leroy a black name? Sure enough the real Leroy is black. In a blatant piece of foreshadowing Jerry (before meeting Leroy/Winston) mentions that he has met "Leroy, from Michigan." which makes Gandolfini's New Joisey accent rather a give-away. The filmmakers think that we should side with Jerry rather than Leroy/Winston because he is prettier. His death has repercussions for the rest of the film, if they had to kill him off couldn't they have waited till nearer the end? With the only likable person out of the picture, the remaining half-hour drag's on through the tedium barrier. For a film purporting to be fast-paced the two-hour running time is deadly. A lot of screen time is given over to Jerry's 'comic' adventures, and it is these, which would have benefited from a more drastic edit. The flashbacks to the creation of the gun are also wearing, displaying Hollywood's picture-postcard idea of south of the border folklore. These and the modern day Mexican's depicted are strictly stereotyped either sneaky tooth-flashing villains or mustachioed upholder of honour. The ending is cynically sentimental, the mob boss (a bored looking Gene Hackman) wanting the gun so that he can give it to the Mexican family whose ancestor we see in flashback, dying for the forbidden love of a man considered beneath her. If only Sam and Jerry had emulated these doomed lovers, but then self-absorbed as they are they would probably consider it to be "avoiding commitment".

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A guy, a gal, some hitmen, and a pistol
Review: This is certainly not a standard Julia Roberts film - I would go so far as to say that if you really like JR's movies you might want to give this a miss.

The R rating is certainly deserved, with lots of coarse language, cold-blooded killings, and adult themes.

On the other hand, the plot is wonderfully complex although relying on simple imagery, the characters a filled out and the script is wonderfully clever. The violence is not gratuitous, but always required by the story. The main characters are beatifully flawed - Brad Pitt plays a bumbling twit involved with the mob by accident, with Julia Roberts as his psycho-babbling, self-help reading girlfriend.

It certainly isn't a Hollywood movie - it feels more like an alternative film like Chasing Amy. Not to say that it isn't wonderfully produced, but that it avoids cliche and categorisation. Is it a Western, a Romance, or just great black humour?

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: DON"T SEE THIS TERRIBLE MOVIE
Review: I absolutely have enjoyed all of Julia Roberts movies - I am ashamed for her for being in this movie. It is down right filthy. The language, toilet sceens, and "extra story line" was HORRIBLE. This is the worst movie I have ever seen.

Whoever did the advertising was quite clever because you would never expect this movie to be sooooo terrible.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: romantic, thrilling AND funny
Review: This movie really brings out its character. It is packed full with surprising twists and turns, scary and romantic moments. The only thing I would have liked is more time together for Jerry (Pitt, arrrrrr) and his girlfriend Sam(Roberts) / Samsonite- his nickname for her. Pitt is absolutely adorable in his role as a nice-guy criminal who just wants to get out but keeps messing up, and thus gets sent away from his girl again while she gets kidnapped by the querest contract killer you'll ever see. And that's just the beginning of the movie... Now, if I was Jerry I wouldn't be so worried about Sam- you'll see what I mean when you see it, because you really should experience it. It is WAY worth while and I'm going to watch it again just to get the intriguing plot straight. Enjoy!

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: enjoyable but confusing at times
Review: My sister and I enjoyed this movie but got confused several times when people got shot and we thought they were dead and then they appeared again with bandages on. Julia Roberts ,Brad Pitt did an excellent job as did the kidnapper from the Sopranos which we have never seen.[James GAndolfini]This was an enjoyable afternoon and I would reccomend it to my friends.


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