Old Gringo

Rating:
Summary: Unlikely Romantic Triangle Set in Pancho Villa's Mexico
Review: Argentinean director Luis Puenzo seems like a smart choice to helm this epic drama since his specialty seems to be offering probing character studies in the face of larger sociopolitical issues. But this 1989 movie falls short of expectations, especially if you've read Carlos Fuentes' 1985 novel upon which this movie is based. All the elements for success seem present - a fascinating historical setting (the Mexican Revolution); rather flamboyant characters (both fictitious and fictionalized); explosive battle scenes; dramatic executions; and a romantic triangle with gauzy love scenes. Indeed, the problem is that the elements don't quite add up to a cohesive whole that induces any heartfelt passion. Set in 1913, the story focuses on an American spinster named Harriet Winslow, who has been hired to be a governess for a wealthy Mexican family on their grand hacienda. The beginning of the story shows great promise as the period detail is vivid, and the set-up of the characters promises some intriguing interactions. However, when the three primary characters come together on the hacienda, the plot seems to narrow in scope, and the story's initial gallop slows to a cant until the conclusion.

I was afraid that at 51, Jane Fonda would be at least a decade too old to play Harriet, but she actually looks right most of the time, slightly worn but constantly engaged with the swirl of activities around her. However, with a stellar career spanning three decades, she just doesn't surprise with this performance (unlike, say, her alcoholic has-been actress in 1986's "The Morning After"), and after one more film, she retired from the big screen for the next fifteen years. Granted she is playing an uptight woman on the verge of a political and sexual awakening, she just comes across as too mannered and frankly too wizened to draw the carnal attentions of two completely different men. On the other hand, it's a joy to see the relish with which Gregory Peck plays Ambrose Bierce, the real American journalist who disappeared into Mexico at this time. His charisma intact, he makes palatable his romantic overtures to Harriet and brings a realistic blend of gusto and frailty to his constant philosophizing and his slow march toward death. As the virulent General Arroyo, one of Pancho Villa's men, Jimmy Smits has to maintain a delicate balancing act between quick-tempered, violent revolutionary and smitten romantic hero. He succeeds up to a point, especially in expressing his obsession with past injustices through firepower, but there is little chemistry between him and Fonda, which leaves the ending scenes oddly hollow. The one exception is the firing squad scene, which is sufficiently shocking. The film is not a complete misfire, but given its interesting mix of historical fact and fiction, I wish it was much more than it is, even though in Peck's case, it is.

Rating:
Summary: A visual and emotional feast
Review: Because the events of the film occur during the revolution in Mexico, one might be tempted to think of Old Gringo as an action oriented war film. Not so. It is a visual and emotional feast, a slice-of-life film that truly makes you feel what it must have been like for an American woman in a foreign country. The trio of actors, Jimmy Smits, Jane Fonda and Gregory Peck, are outstanding. Be prepared to think and feel. This is a rich feast indeed.

Rating:
Summary: The Old Gringo - Truth, Innocence and the Mexican Revolution
Review: El Gringo Viejo was a truly remarkable book. When I found that they had made a movie of it I was skeptical. How could a movie portray the characters in the book with any justice. I was plesantly surprised. Gregory Peck's portrayal of truth and it's death in the Mexican Revolution, Jane Fonda's portrayal of innocence and it's ultimate loss and Jimmy Smits portrayal of General Arroyo, a parallel for the idealistic beginnings, eventual corruption, and finally death of the Mexican Revolution of 1910, were a wonderful tribute to the book and it's author. It is a rare masterpiece.
It is a treasure that I would recommend to anyone.

Rating:
Summary: Old Gringo
Review: Peck and Fonda at their best and typical Smits; an emotional feast

Rating:
Summary: Breathtaking
Review: The ability to draw out different emotions from the viewer is this movie's strength. How can one not fall in love with the general and then hate him later? Each character is mysterious and sad, but they blend together perfectly. I loved this movie and will keep it in my collection forever.

Rating:
Summary: The Hemisphere Turned Upside Down
Review: The Old Gringo--an historically-based novel by Mexican diplomat, intellectual and author Carlos Fuentes--is a sensitive, complex, and ultimately satisfying portrayal of the Mexican people and a core period in their history. Not only is the acting intense and heartfelt, but also the hemisphere is turned upside down and one is allowed in for a moment to a world that trips to modern resort beaches can never access--the passionate, fascinating, suffering, poverty-stricken, and tempted-to-revolution nature of life in Latin America. For Fonda, herself a young revolutionary (disagree if you like) during the Vietnam War, and those like myself who have been to war-stricken lands like Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala, and, yes, today's Mexico with its Zapatista movement in Chiapas, the passion of a people actively engaged in fundamental rhythms of everyday life and survival is inspiring beyond words. Each of the three principle characters--the young revolutionary general (Jimmy Smits), the spinster American school teacher (Jane Fonda) and the self-exiled American writer Ambrose Bierce (Gregory Peck)--are presented with a common dilemma, a dilemma presented to many of us of relative wealth and privilege (i.e., any American by comparison with our third world brothers and sisters) by the choice between our life of comfort and relative ease as compared with a life of sacrifice and commitment to a greater common good. The dilemmas are real, the passions are palpable, and a world turned upside down--like the upside-down map of the hemisphere on revolutionary General Poncho Villa's wall--is a wonder to behold. From the brutal "murder" of a horse to the beautiful and sensitive portrayals of the peasant people in the midst of revolution, this movie is an all-time favorite of mine. I am glad I have found out where to get it because at one time I had been told it was unavailable. It will now hold a spot on my shelf with a number of other signicant "main stream" pictures on Latin America, including Olmos's 1992 "American Me", Nava's 1983 "El Norte" and Oliver Stone's 1986 "Salvador"--pictures that had to be made but could only have been made by the right person in the right time. Puenzo as director with Fonda, Peck, and Smits were the right people coming together in the right place for this one.

Rating:
Summary: Gregory Peck was great
Review: This movie is set in rural Mexico in the early years of the twentieth century. An emotionally lost, sexually-frustrated woman, Harriet (wonderfully portrayed by Fonda), leaves her southern belle existence to tutor children on a hacienda in Mexico. Just before leaving, she watches Ambrose Bierce deliver a lecture to a group of journalists where he issues a manic, mean-spirited farewell to that life. Bierce (Gregory Peck)has also decided to go to Mexico. She's desperately trying to find herself; he has calmly and systematically set out to lose himself. They meet again in a band of rebels led by General Tomas Arroyo (Smits) and the excitement (and love triangle) begins.

The movie is very loosely based upon the novel The Old Gringo, by Carlos Fuentes. Unlike the character known as the Old Man or the Old Gringo in the novel, Ambrose Bierce is immediately identified by name and is immediately recognizable by character traits. In the novel, the Old Man is very enigmatic, vague and hard to place. Here, the Old Gringo is all that one would expect Ambrose Bierce to be -- abusive, arrogant, conflicted, bitter, supremely sarcastic and, strangely enough, admirable. Gregory Peck was so Bierce-ish, at times I was enchanted.

If you've ever wondered how Ambrose Bierce met his end, this is a nice flight of fancy.