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Fri. Mar. 9, 2001
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Art & Culture > Movie &Theatre > Archive
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Movie Review: The Mexican
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Directed by Gore Verbinski, and starring Brad Pitt and Julia Roberts in their first major production together, The Mexican follows the formulaic Hollywood love story. It deals with a twisted relationship between a mobster middleman named Jerry Welbach (Brad Pitt) and his ever-feisty girlfriend, Samantha (Julia Roberts). However, the two stars rarely appear in the same scenes, because the film takes place simultaneously in Mexico and Las Vegas as the two lovers go off on their own wild adventures.
The trouble begins when Jerry is summoned by the big boss to retrieve a legendary gun, insultingly enough referred to as "The Mexican." Samantha, already tired of Jerry's seemingly lack of commitment, becomes enraged at the news but agrees to meet him in Vegas after Jerry promises her that this will be his last job.
In the process of retrieving the gun, Jerry loses his rental El Camino and becomes a stranded outsider in Mexico. Meanwhile, Samantha is abducted on her way to Las Vegas by a hit man named Leroy (played by The Sopranos star, James Gandofini) to serve as insurance for the delivery of the coveted gun.
Left with nothing, Jerry luckily gets rides by asking, "Lift in your trucko to the next towno!" To an extent, one cannot help but notice a twist of supremacist mockery of the Spanish language in Jerry's tone of voice as he bums a ride from town to town. And, back in Vegas, Samantha and Leroy seem to have bonded on the basis of her resentment towards Jerry's spontaneous behavior. They form quite a witty friendship that brings a nice surprise to an unsurprisingly dull film.
As the movie progresses through some mildly comical twists and turns, it does somewhat pick up pace - to the delight of moviegoers. However, the slight violence and profanity seem a bit out of place juxtaposed with the overall comedic demeanor of the film - often forced in situations that are not funny to begin with.
Furthermore, because there is an attempt to incorporate a mish mash of themes and cover too much ground in The Mexican, it is practically impossible to gain any insight from it - or even take the movie seriously at all for that matter. Is it necessary to add violence and profanity to a movie in order to portray seriousness? It makes a person wonder why so many viewers find such aspects of movie making amusing.
There is a time and place for everything; it just seems that The Mexican could not develop one element without upsetting another.
With all due respect, The Mexican is a fairly amusing movie around a rather likable storyline; it is relatively good when you compare it to most movies out in theatres right now, and it even has surprise guest cameo by a well-known actor in the ending. However, it requires very little thinking, or even attention, because of its overall predictability. It can be added to the list of movies that attract viewers because of their big time star power - a recurring phenomenon that has sadly downsized respect for the filmmaking industry (as if it needs any help in that regard).
One is amazed at the twenty million dollar paycheck that Julia Roberts received for being in this film, which ironically cannot rival many films that took far less to produce. We can only question whether viewers are paying to see the movie or the stars in the movie, and whether or not the art of movie making has actually succumbed to the art of making money only.
Once again, greed rears its ugly head.
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