Luckless Mafioso, Lame Dialogue and A Legend
By Julie Anne Phillipps
"The Mexican," opened March 2, and quickly moved to drive-in theaters. This much misunderstood film, directed by Gore Verbinski known for his previous film Mouse Hunt, stars Brad Pitt as Jerry Welbach, an inept criminal hunting an infamous pistol, and Julia Roberts as Samantha his Oprah trained girlfriend.
Roberts’s success came in a series of chick flicks in the late 80s and early 90’s making her a major box office draw. We wept copiously over her ill-fated Shelby in “Steel Magnolias” (1989) and her sweetheart hooker, Vivian, in “Pretty Woman” (1990) stole our hearts. Roberts’s most recent performance as the headstrong, cleavage-popping “Erin Brokovich” continues our love affair with that mythical femme fatale ‘the hooker with a heart of gold.’ That we love Julia best when she's dying young or hooking (sorry Tinkerbelle) speaks volumes about why talented actors such as Roberts disappear from the big screen when they hit forty. Unfortunately, Samantha doesn’t die and she never flashes.
The film shifts between Jerry, a character with an almost terminal case of bad luck, and a legendary pistol called ‘The Mexican.’ “The Mexican” combines luckless Mafioso’s, lame dialogue straight from the Oprah school of relationship psychology, while weaving a tale of an improbably cursed pistol. Jerry, an amiable idiot, works off his debt to a Mafia don he runs down in the opening scene.
The inept mob runner lives with his girlfriend Samantha, whose dream is to be a Vegas croupier. Their relationship flounders under the deluge of Sam’s relentless carping, even with the help of a relationship support group. The two megastars' frenetic portrayals overwhelm an insipid street side argument with so many hand gestures that you have to wonder if they were directed to act ‘Eyetalian.’ “The Mexican” attempts to parody stylistically deprived Mafia movies, but overall it falls short.
With predictable dialogue, “The Mexican” almost misfires until Leroy, a hitman/ kidnapper, arrives to “regulate the funkiness.” Soprano star James Gandolfini deftly carries off the incongruities that make Leroy a treasure. Roberts’ Samantha, and Gandolfini’s Leroy, shares a running dialogue that hilariously destroys the dense headed relationship psychobabble popularized in the 70s. As the two characters begin their emotion plagued dialogue, Leroy commanders Sam’s VW beetle and launches into the first of many bizarre car chase scenes. Cars, trucks and an “EL” Camino provide energy and comic relief that work effectively to shift between plots keeping
“The Mexican” lively where the cliché-ridden screenplay by J. H. Wyman drags. The plot is predictable and the heavy handed foreshadowing in the sepia toned “Legend of the Cursed Pistol” scenes give away the ending long before the credits roll. Shot by Danusz Wolski, the scenes depicting the many curses on the legendary pistol have a distinct silent movie quality. Wolski employs intriguing techniques to accentuate each location, starting with a garish, too bright Los Angeles where Sam and Jerry wage their lover’s war in a tacky, run-down apartment. The scenes in Mexico, where Jerry tries to finish his last job for the Mafia don, emphasis a dark and dusty world filled with murderous pseudo-criminals.
Publicity for “The Mexican” focuses on the first-screen pairing of Brad Pitt and Julia Roberts. However, “The Mexican,” an ensemble production, provides comedic opportunities for all the actors to shine, most notably James Gandolfini. “The Mexican” succeeds by ridiculing all the things we love to hate, including a send-down of the NRA’s ad campaign by Leroy’s love interest who proclaims, “Guns don’t kill people. Postal workers do.”
When the curtain finally falls, the video stores will make a killing as the drinking crowd rushes to slam tequila and Coronas at each repetition of the phrase, “I’m just doing my portion.”