The Mexican (2001)-"R"

Run Time:123 minutes

2 and 1/2 stars out of 4

Gore Verbinski's The Mexican somewhat disappointed me, but, then again, I wasn't quite sure of what to expect in the first place. Verbinski has only directed one other major film, that I know of, the marginal Mousehunt (1997), so I didn't have much of a frame of reference to base an expectation on for this film, anyway. The story follows Jerry Walbach (Brad Pitt), a misfortunate employee of an imprisoned mob boss, Margolis (Gene Hackman). Walbach has a history of messing up deals that he is assigned to, so he is forced to do one last one, despite his desperate wanting to quit, to make up for all of the past problems he caused. His assignment is to pick up a valuable and supposedly cursed gun, nicknamed "The Mexican" from a guy named Beck (David Krumholtz), in a small town in Mexico. Walbach gets the gun, but right after, Beck is accidentally killed in the street, and Walbach's car, with the priceless gun in it, is stolen. Not only has Walbach lost the gun, the deceased Beck turns out to be Margolis's grandson, making Walbach's situation very grim indeed, considering his past screw-ups. Meanwhile, in the States, Walbach's girlfriend, Samantha Barzel, has left him and his life of crime, and left for Vegas. She is kidnapped by a mob hit man, Leroy (James Gandolfini), the ensure the pistol's safe return, just in case that Walbach gets any ideas, and tries to make off with the gun. Samantha finds out that Leroy is gay and then emotionally connects with him, and they become the best of buddies. The movie goes on for a long time after that, with misadventures and whatnot, but it's not very exciting or engaging, and felt like it was dragging on. I also have trouble seeing why this film was advertised as a romantic comedy between Pitt and Roberts, when they only share the screen together for a few scenes and don't seem to have real chemistry. Plus, the film isn't much of a comedy, with no real big laughs or even a very comedic plot, its more of a drama or action film. In the end though, I wound up somewhat liking the story of the gun, and I'm always a fan of Brad Pitt, so I liked the film more than I didn't. The Mexican characters were also interesting and entertaining, but it was, however, hard to take Julia Roberts annoying character repeatedly giving phony love advice to a gay hit man.