THE MEXICAN
US, 2001, 123 minutes, Colour.
Brad Pitt, Julia Roberts, James Gandolfini, Bob Balaban.
Directed by Gore Verbinski.
A long shaggy dog story about a bumbling courier for a crime family, his mission to Mexico to find a legendary gun (and as part of the yarn we are shown successive episodes of the legend with its story of doomed love and vengeance) and bring it back to Los Angeles. What could go wrong does go wrong. The complications include a strident girlfriend with ambitions to be a casino dealer in Las Vegas, a hit man, another hit man (with a gay sensitivity) who abducts the girlfriend, crooked intermediaries, corrupt cops, Mexican 'family' members...
It all adds up to a dawdling film that moves between the amusing and the silly. And the pairing of Brad Pitt and Julia Roberts? They spend most of the film apart. She is made to look fairly unglamorous and to shout too much. Brad Pitt has to look sheepish and act foolish (and, as in Snatch, he does show some flair for slapstick fun and comic timing). Soprano James Gandolfini is the hit-man and, in terms of acting, steals the show with his sympathetic support of Julia despite his ruthlessness.
Gore Verbinski directed the comic The Mouse Hunt. Now he has a bigger budget, bigger stars, longer running time, but only a here and there success.
1. Popular pairing of the two stars? Their individual charismas? Their working together? (Their being apart from each other for so much of the film?)
2. The Los Angeles locations, the city, the down and out areas? The Mexican landscapes? The Mexican towns? Prisons? The contrast between the American desert and the Mexican desert? Las Vegas? The musical score?
3. The title and the focus on the gun? The stories about the gun and the various flashbacks told by individual characters, each expanding on the story of the gun and its being ill fated?
4. Jerry and Brad Pitt's comic style? Pratfalls and mugging? As a character, as a loser? Jailed, criminal jobs? The car accident and his crashing into Mr Margolese and Margolese going to jail? His being beholden to him? Being sent to Mexico to recover the gun and bring it back? His adventures in Mexico, his friends, the phone calls? Double crosses? The Mexican police, the Mexican families? His being taken, the stories being told? His escapes? The phone calls to Sam and her anger? Leroy and his being the wrong Leroy? The build up to the reconciliation with Sam, the adventures together, meeting Mr Margolese, the confrontation with Bernie Nayman? And the resolution?
5. Sam and her wanting to get married, her relationship with Jerry, the screeching and the fighting? Her intolerance of his missions? Leaving him, throwing him out? Going to Las Vegas? The attempts on her life? Leroy and his protection? Their travelling together, his being gay, his sensitivity? The discussions about the gun? His protecting her? The irony that he was the false Leroy? The confrontations with both of them? His picking up Frank on the road, encouraged by Sam, their relationship? Frank's death and his reaction? The confrontation with Jerry, the sudden brutality of his death?
6. Bernie Nayman and his thugs, the relationship with Mr Margolese, wanting the gun, using Jerry and his associates? Phone calls, the betrayals? The violent confrontations?
7. Mr Margolese (and the surprise of Gene Hackman appearing)? The story of his criminal work, the accident, in jail? The pressure put on Jerry? The demands made on him?
8. The film as a road movie: in the United States, the bumbling hero, the heroine and her shouting and screaming, the overtones of the screwball comedy? On the road in Mexico, the Mexican villages, the legends? The Hispanic traditions? How well did they all combine for a serio comic melodrama?
