EL GRINGO
US, 2012, 99 minutes, Colour.
Scott Adkins, Christian Slater, Yvette Yates.
Directed by Eduardo Rodriguez.
The director of El Gringo is a Venezuelan director, working in a style that is a blend of spaghetti westerns and Quentin Tarantino films. All the characters are introduced with a visual of their names, a range of people from bandits and drug dealers to New Mexico police officers, guards at the wall border with Mexico, the people in a rather squalid town, the chief of police, the owner of the local bar, the leader of the gang, and young woman who wants to be part of the gang…
The action concerns a shootout at the Mexican border, with the central character, El Gringo, played by English born Scott Adkins, shooting a man in New Mexico, putting him in the boot of the car and setting it alight. He then walks to the border, intending to go to Acapulco with the bagful of money that he has taken, but finding himself in an ugly Mexican town. No one will sell him a glass of water, it emerging that the chief of police, on the take, intends to control the town, pays people to ignore the Gringo.
The woman who owns the local local bar, does have some pity on the Gringo because the people have burnt down her father’s bar. No one is willing to sell him a ticket to get out of town. He sits and waits, is set upon by gangs, kills off an extraordinary number of them – and is then confronted by a police officer, Christian Slater, antagonistic towards his superiors, who is actually in with the chief of police and is a bagman.
When all seems fatal for the gringo, he is helped by the woman at the bar, shooting the chief of police and Christian Slater – revealing that, contrary to what the initial impression was, he is a good and upright lawman.
This is a straight to DVD film, has some interest in its plot about drugs and the Mexican- American border, in showing Christian Slater as the sleazy villain and in highlighting the skills of the Gringo.
It raises issues of integrity, drug dealing, the law, and capitalises on the appetite of DVD viewers for action and violence.
