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The Mexican

The Mexican

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Rating: 4 stars
Summary: A good mix
Review: 'The Mexican' has a good mix of comedy, romance, action, adventure, drama and suspense. Very enjoyable movie. Julia plays a wonderful quirky, smartypants, sensitive, woman in love. Brad does very well as a slightly lost, good hearted semi-boyfriend just trying to keep himself alive while hoping that his semi-girlfriend will somehow understand. James puts in a stellar performance as the guy who is "very sensitive for a cold-blooded killer".

I recommend giving this movie a shot. Leave your expectations at the door and just enjoy the show for what it is ... a quirky kinda dark romantic comedy. It is well done, combining romance, action and emotional impact with comedy.

There are some very funny scenes, a few somewhat deep scenes that deal with relationship issues and some dramatic scenes that are sad and some that are happy, all of them touching. There are also some subtle jokes, so keep your eyes and ears open!

Admittedly, there was a point where I felt that the movie was going on a bit long, but it quickly became interesting again and I forgot about that.

When you watch this movie, I recommend taking special note of the three main character's eyes. The actors very effectively express their character's emotions and thoughts with their eyes.

Enjoy!

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Quirk, offbeat movie not typical superstar material
Review: Many movie goers (and not a few critics) were perplexed by The Mexican. People don't like to be perplexed, and much of the word of mouth, as well as the reviews, were far from kind. I happened to really like this movie in many ways, but I tend not to categorize either movies or actors as much as others do. I think the best way to enjoy the movie is to forget that it brings the first pairing of super paid superstars Brad Pitt and Julia Roberts. Try, if you can, to think of it as an independent film that just happens to star them. This might be difficult because, even though their bodies of work suggest otherwise, both Pitt and Roberts have reputations which make people want to see them in big budget formula flicks. So, forget the thoughts of a bubbly romance, ala Notting Hill. Here, not only are they acting in a rather dark little comedy, they are on screen together only four or five times. These scenes are memorable, however, and, considering how combative the characters are to each other, their being together through the whole movie would have proven to be too much.

Jerry and Samantha [Pitt and Roberts] have lived together for five years. They love each other, but they have issues which cause them to fight a lot. Samantha is into trendy psychobabble about relationships which drives Jerry crazy. Jerry was the party at fault in a traffic accident a few years back that caused a big mobster to be sent to prison. He's has been forced to work for the man's gang ever since. Jerry and Sam are planning to move to Las Vegas where Sam thinks she will find happiness by first becoming a waitress and then a dealer at a casino. When the mob unexpectedly forces Jerry to take one more job because he screwed up the last one, Sam revolts and throws him out. He must go to Mexico to retrieve a priceless antique pistol which is 'The Mexican' of the movie's title. Jerry never has had much luck or common sense, and everything imaginable goes wrong south of the border. Meanwhile, Sam leaves for Vegas alone. En route, she is kidnapped by Leroy [James Gandolfini], who claims he is holding her hostage to ensure Jerry's bringing the pistol back. Sam is no ordinary victim, as it turns out, and Leroy is about the most interesting kidnapper you'll ever meet. Back in Mexico, Jerry fumbles along and soon comes to believe the stories about the pistol's being cursed are the truth.

Gandolfini, who is best known for his role on HBO's The Sopranos, nearly steals the show as Leroy. He plays his role so well that you could say the movie has three stars. Pitt and Roberts are great, making the best of roles that are a bit difficult because these characters are sometimes hard to relate to. Sam can be awfully pushy and shrill, and Jerry is not working with a full deck. Actors of lesser skills would have lost any empathy with the audience, but Pitt and Roberts pull it off.

I have just one complaint about The Mexican. It's a comedy with a mean streak in it. Certain scenes that I assume are meant to be humorous seem a little cold blooded to me. I have seen this same technique in several movies recently. It's okay with me if a movie is callous, but such an attitude doesn't always equal funny. Still, there are enough laughs and witty lines to make it worth you while.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: I loved this movie----it's an El Camino
Review: Most people were disappointed in The Mexican. They expected greatness and felt that the movie fell short. I expected something mediocre (because of reviews) and found something suspenseful, funny, romantic and action packed. James Gandolfini as the gay hit man discovering his sensitive side was tremendous. He is much more comically effective than Robert DeNiro discovering his sensitive side in Analyze This. Some of the movie's characters twist and turn in who are the antagonists and the protagonists. Brad Pitt stars as a two-bit organized crime gopher that keeps screwing up. Great scene: Pitt on the side of a deserted highway, jumping and saying, "This time I win. This time I win. This time I win..." Only drawback is a lifeless Gene Hackman playing his movie self.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: a great movie
Review: i thought that the movie was very funny. Brad Pitt and Julia Roberts make good couple. The movie sometimes confussed me but i got it all in the end. I have to say even though the movie was good it was way too long.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: NOT FUNNY OR EVEN ROMANTIC
Review: This is not romantic, funny or enterteining.It's something boring and stupid.
Julia Roberts always looks radiant.And Brad Pitt can't do much here.
The should try to do something else together, but thet aren't a nice couple.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Love with the safety off
Review: This is the story of a man who wants out, but gets pulled back in one last time. Jerry Welbach(Brad Pitt) is sent to sunny México to the small ( and we're talkin' tiny) town of San Miguel to pick up a special gun. But his girl(Julia Roberts) wants him to stay and head off to Las Vegas (pronounced "lost wages") with her. As an alternative to being rolled up in a carpet, doused with gasoline and set on fire Jerry elects to head south of the border and pick up the Mexican. But he's after a gun not a person although the gun is said to hold a girl's soul within it.Once Jerry sets off Murphy's law rules as he gets lost, ripped off in the seediest bar in all México and then learns his girl has been kidnapped to insure his co-operation. And THEN he also learns, near the end that he's been double crossed, the gun is going to a buyer not to mob boss Margolese, as he was told. But in the end the power of the gun settles all, Jerry and his girl get togther, the gun goes where it belongs and the cheater gets cheated. The novel is listed as a mystery, the movie is labeled a comedy. And it is, it is the human comedy, laced with tragedy as the Mexican's curse is revealed. This movie has heart and so does the Mexican.
La Méxicana, úna pistola con úna corazón, a gun with a heart & soul.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Absolutely one of the worst movies I have ever seen
Review: This is filmmaking at its lowest common denominator. For one, the plot is absolute nonsense. The screenwriter and/or the director seemed to have made up the story as they went along. Two, this is one of those movies that is outrageously bloody and violent, yet is STILL supposed to be lighthearted comedy. Brad Pitt and others kill nonstop throughout the entire boring two hours, yet unrealistically they face no retribution at all for their actions. It's as if saying: It's good fun to murder people, and why not engage in this exciting and fun activity! You'll never get caught or face any questions.
Third, the movie sickenly stereotypes Mexicans as barefooted, dirty white clothes, pauncho wearing "gringos." I'm amazed the Mexican community has not raised an uproar over this flick. It seems if it appeared at theaters in Mexico it would be run out of town. Fourth, Julia Roberts is one of the most annoying and overrated actresses in films today. In this movie, she carries on her usual quirks and mannerisms displayed in all her flicks.
She's the same character in every movie! In The Mexican she even appears physically unattractive. This review is a warning. Avoid this one at all costs.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: "The Mexican" Suffers From Apparent Severe Time Constraints
Review: This movie seems like a rush job that had to accommodate the schedule of its central participants. One gets the impression that there was little time allotted for revisions and numerous takes. I kept getting the impression, perhaps unfairly, that the actors were more concerned with their next project. The chemistry between Brad Pitt and Julia Roberts did not remind one of Spencer Tracy and Katherine Hepburn. Also, they are getting too old to play the parts of individuals who act as if they are still in their late twenties.

Jerry (Pitt) is a bumbling petty criminal who cannot stay out of trouble. His boss portrayed by the always delightful Bob Balaban orders Jerry to enter Mexico to retrieve a pistol named "The Mexican." This is no ordinary gun, and it might even be cursed. The story line depends on a unflattering depiction of Mexican life that borders on caricature. Every cliché and demeaning stereotype is employed to push the story along. Samantha (Roberts) comes unglued by Jerry's new job assignment. This results in a series of marginally comical events involving a gay professional assassin named Leroy (James Gandolfini). The two of them engage in unrelenting psychobabble and overdone bathroom humor. However, I must concede that these scenes somewhat save the movie. "The Mexican" is too long by about twenty minutes. Gene Hackman has a cameo role at the very end portraying a criminal leader. He adds virtually nothing to the plot, and Hackman reads his lines as if he only had one day of preparation. Added star power is not sufficient to address a lackluster production. Unfortunately, the powers that be in Hollywood have yet to learn this lesson. This is not the worst movie ever made, and for fans of Pitt and Roberts there is just enough here to make it worth your while. I'll give it three stars.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: The Mexican Yuk!
Review: Two good stars in this film who tried their best but clearly a film ruined by a combination of director, studio, and editor. The film should be edited down to 85 to 90 minutes instead of the 120 min running time. This film was poor beyond belief. There must have been 5 plot lines that were going at one time and then eventually 4 were killed (literally and figuratively), too bad the surviving plot line was so boneheaded and unbelievable, any one of the other plots could have made it a good film. The storyline was never made plausible or even remotely believable. It appeared that neither the script writers or the director had a clue where the film should be going and how to get there. I would not call it a comedy (black or otherwise, if so it wasn't terribly funny), not much of an adventure flick (rather manufactured), drama (perhaps, but to what point). If the Pitt character was that incompetent, the mafia boss would have terminated him early on, they really don't permit that many mistakes (usually your first is the last). The final explanation why the boss selected him struck me as somewhat lame--as if the director needed to explain a rather needlessly complex plot. All around, an abysmal failure, too bad that they wasted the time of two very good actors.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: overlong but generally fun
Review: Those hoping to see Brad Pitt and Julia Roberts performing together in the same movie may well have to wait for the pair's next joint effort - for 'The Mexican' is definitely NOT that film. Indeed, it is safe to say that the two stars share less than ¼ of the film's total running time occupying even the same country let alone the same scene. Still, despite that limitation, 'The Mexican' turns out to be a rather fun, rather screwy comedy crime caper, offering an offbeat plot, stylish direction and first-rate performances by a talented cast.

The plot involves Pitt, as a young man named Jerry, who is sent on assignment to Mexico by a crime boss who wants him to retrieve a special Mexican pistol named, appropriately, 'The Mexican.' Meanwhile, Roberts plays his long time girlfriend, Samantha, who has just about had it with Jerry's inability to commit to their relationship and who decides she is going to move to Vegas to start life anew as a waitress or a croupier. While in Mexico, Jerry runs up against some serious setbacks, while in Vegas, Samantha is kidnapped by Leroy, who holds Samantha as a bargaining chip to ensure that Jerry doesn't engage in any funny business on his way to completing his mission.

Ever since 'Pulp Fiction' in 1994, we have been subjected to one film after another in which criminals and hit men talk about the mundane matters of civilized living in between shoot-outs and gangland-style executions. This is now the standard for any crime film that wants to be considered 'hip,' 'cool' and 'contemporary.' Sometimes this technique works and sometimes it doesn't. In the case of 'The Mexican,' it mostly works. This is due in no small measure to the playful screenplay by J.H. Wyman, who has managed to devise both humorous situations and high-spirited dialogue exchanges for his characters, a flashy directorial style by Gore Verbinski, who knows how to maintain an effective balance between humor and violence, and, above all, by delightful performances not only from Pitt and Roberts but from James Gandolfini, who literally steals the show as Roberts' gay kidnapper, a confidante who keeps offering words of wisdom to a brokenhearted Roberts on matters of interpersonal relationships. Gandolfino creates a character of amazing depth, variety and subtlety, managing to seem threatening, decent, ruthless and caring, all while remaining within a very tight range of expression. It is one of the most effectively understated, yet rich, performances I have seen in a movie in a very long time.

In 'The Mexican,' Pitt once again demonstrates his undervalued skill as an actor. The slightly quizzical, slightly befuddled expression he conveys throughout the film not only heightens the comedic elements of the screenplay, but creates a great deal of audience sympathy for this likable, well-meaning young man who just happens to be way in over his head with the rank company he is forced to deal with. Roberts, likewise, does a stellar job as a woman who is alternately compassionate, frustrated, headstrong, feisty and committed.

Yes, one hopes that, in their next venture together, Pitt and Roberts will choose a vehicle with a little more substance than 'The Mexican' seems to have ' and that they get to spend a little more on-screen time together as well. In the meantime, however, 'The Mexican' does provide a number of ancillary pleasures to make it well worth checking out.


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