The Mexican (2001)
A crazy, fun, off-the-wall, slightly indulgent spaghetti western styled would be Tarantino farce. It's great and it's lame compared to what it could have been.
Brad Pitt makes it work most of all, and his half of the movie playing off of clichés of Mexican life, especially as seen through the movies, is funny and whacked. The other half of the movie features, somehow, Julia Roberts and that's the wimpy boring half of things. You sense even an attempt at some "Pulp Fiction" stuff in general, even with the dumb thugs and witty conversation, and in fact it sort of works. But not compared to Tarantino.
It's fun to see what might be a whole new genre of movies developing over the last 15 years--camp excess, part comic part grotesque, and playing off of movie and storytelling clichés. Call it postmodern if you want, but it's mostly a different kind of parody than previously.
One weird part of the billing of the movie is the two leads, who are together at the same time for only a few minutes in first half of the film (which gives nothing away). Later they have some screen time at once and are maybe less charismatic together than you might have expected.
The director, Gore Verbinski, might have little to show for himself up to this point--but this might be watched as a turning point for him since he went on to further campy fame with the Pirates of the Caribbean movies. Not so bad.
The fact is, it's a comedy (a black comedy, maybe, but not so dark in tone). Pitt is a natural for this kind of humor--notice that Tarantino picked up on this himself and so Pitt appears in "Inglourious Basterds" to great, similar effect. Here he's attractively boyish at times. Gene Hackman shows up in "The Mexican," by the way, and he's always effective. If brief.
You do eventually wonder how it's all going to work its way together, the two very separate plots. The writer needs some credit for audacity but there is a longer term problem of development--taking a great idea and complicating it, making it matter, something beyond this great set of basics. You'll see how it goes, and you'll wonder how something so outrageous could actually get sluggish after awhile. And after an hour of more or less sluggish sameness you'll be frustrated.
A crazy, fun, off-the-wall, slightly indulgent spaghetti western styled would be Tarantino farce. It's great and it's lame compared to what it could have been.
Brad Pitt makes it work most of all, and his half of the movie playing off of clichés of Mexican life, especially as seen through the movies, is funny and whacked. The other half of the movie features, somehow, Julia Roberts and that's the wimpy boring half of things. You sense even an attempt at some "Pulp Fiction" stuff in general, even with the dumb thugs and witty conversation, and in fact it sort of works. But not compared to Tarantino.
It's fun to see what might be a whole new genre of movies developing over the last 15 years--camp excess, part comic part grotesque, and playing off of movie and storytelling clichés. Call it postmodern if you want, but it's mostly a different kind of parody than previously.
One weird part of the billing of the movie is the two leads, who are together at the same time for only a few minutes in first half of the film (which gives nothing away). Later they have some screen time at once and are maybe less charismatic together than you might have expected.
The director, Gore Verbinski, might have little to show for himself up to this point--but this might be watched as a turning point for him since he went on to further campy fame with the Pirates of the Caribbean movies. Not so bad.
The fact is, it's a comedy (a black comedy, maybe, but not so dark in tone). Pitt is a natural for this kind of humor--notice that Tarantino picked up on this himself and so Pitt appears in "Inglourious Basterds" to great, similar effect. Here he's attractively boyish at times. Gene Hackman shows up in "The Mexican," by the way, and he's always effective. If brief.
You do eventually wonder how it's all going to work its way together, the two very separate plots. The writer needs some credit for audacity but there is a longer term problem of development--taking a great idea and complicating it, making it matter, something beyond this great set of basics. You'll see how it goes, and you'll wonder how something so outrageous could actually get sluggish after awhile. And after an hour of more or less sluggish sameness you'll be frustrated.