Watch The Mexican For Free

Very well executed

Plenty to Like, Plenty to Dislike

One of my all time favorites.

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

"Lovable" loser Brad Pitt is forced by gangsters to head south of the border to retrieve a cursed antique gun known as "The Mexican," while hit-man James Gandolfini kidnaps Pitt's girlfriend Julia Roberts for insurance.The Mexican, some unholy combination of romantic comedy, edgy violence, and Quentin Tarantino-esque tomfoolery succeeds at none of these things, despite featuring Pitt and Roberts at the height of their popularity. In fact, the film is so tonally uneven, muddled and unpleasant to watch that it is impossible to ascertain what attracted these performers to it.Director Gore Verbinski has neither the light touch or off-beat flare to make anything we see take flight...unless it is the viewer from the theater. Full disclosure, I nearly made it to the end of this turkey before my party finally threw in the towel and left.Much of the problem with the film is that it seems to believe that we have some sympathy for the Pitt and Roberts characters and are rooting for them to safely be reunited. Alas, we don't. When we first meet them, Pitt is a pathetic pantywaist being bullied by his mob acquaintances and Roberts, and Roberts is light years beyond shrill in an atypically charmless performance. Their opening scenes are basically Roberts shrieking at Pitt like a nagging fishwife and Pitt stomping around in a petulant put-upon snit. We are glad when they separate (although even singularly they are unpleasant company) and actually do NOT wish for them to reunite safely. Your film has a major problem when the central couple is so off-putting that you hope they never reunite.Worse, the film's badly directed incidences of pseudo-slapstick give way to very brutal (and very real) passages of unwelcome violence that seem to come from another film entirely.The passages with Roberts and Gandolfini are near excruciating because she simply won't shut up and keeps yammering. Gandolfini, The Sopranos over-feted one-trick-pony, pretty much plays Tony Soprano for the umpteenth time...only this time, he is gay. Isn't that hilarious? A gay hit-man with all the mannerisms of Tony Soprano. That is about as far as the ingenuity in this mess goes. And truthfully, once you see what the film has in store for Gandolfini and the hapless romantic foil that Roberts hooks him up with, it especially feels like a waste of time.Truthfully, this is one of the most aggravating, unpleasant and appalling films to come down the pike in decades. It succeeds at nothing it attempts and manages to tarnish the careers of its stars in the process. I hope that both Pitt and Roberts have paid back on whatever bet they lost because I cannot imagine any other reason for their inclusion in this debacle.

Gore Verninski's The Mexican is somewhat of an oddity. Verbinski is known for massive scale Hollywood epics, and this one has trappings of such a film, but instead takes an off kilter, unpredictably strange approach, through committed, idiosyncratic writing, and a dense, comic narrative that unfolds in such an odd manner you can't help but get invested in. Brad Pitt is a sheepish screw up as Jerry, a hapless low level gangster underling who is tasked with returning a priceless Mexican antique pistol to his bosses. The pistol, embedded in a tragic legend and believed to hold a curse, certainly seems to be troublesome McGuffin for our hero. Between his hapless ineptitude and the curse, he's led on madcap chase through the southern states and across the border to find the relic, transport it, and do right by his shady employers, who may just have it out to end him if he messes up one more time. Pitt, often the assured, confident leading man, has a Scrappy Doo esque, dishevelled side to his talents, which he uses to great effect here, laying a guy just this side of dumb, who is adorably trying to extricate himself from his situation. Julia Roberts plays his neurotic girlfriend Samantha, who doesn't approve of his line of work, and follows him on his looney odyssey, always one step behind. She crosses paths with a no nonsense hit-man played by James Gandolfini, giving the best performance of the film. His character, Winston Baldry, initially kidnaps Samantha, and gradually befriends her, the two of them forming a touching bond that provides the poignant moments of the film, rays of grounded seriousness in an otherwise glib enterprise. J.K. Simmons is priceless as an aloof, eccentric member of Pitt's organization, Bob Balaban is the unassuming yet scary ringleader, and there's a wonderful surprise cameo from an A lister near the end that I won't spoil. This is the type of film where the old adage "don't judge a book by its cover" comes into play. The cover suggests a light bit of romantic intrigue that focuses on the chemistry of its two star leads. Instead, they are separated for a majority of the film, and we are treated to a tongue in cheek, oddball romp with moments of surreal levity, real emotional beats that feel earned, and a slick, almost Elmore Leonard style story.

it's difficult to come up with new ways to say a movie is an incoherent, bloviating, sleep-inducing, overly-self-important, and utterly pointless mess. With 2001's The Mexican, I see only difficulty. I sat in front of the TV watching this "black comedy," hoping something, anything would happen that would make sense, would make me care about the characters or the story. The Mexican makes so little sense and is so thoroughly tedious that I wasn't even interested, well into the third reel, when Gene Hackman shows up.I have seen a lot of rotten movies in my time, and many of them were watchable despite their awfulness. The Mexican can't even get to that level of incompetence, it's that bad.

Jerry Welbach (Brad Pitt) has to bring back a pistol called 'The Mexican' with a guy back from Mexico as his next job for the mob. His girlfriend Samantha Barzel (Julia Roberts) is sick of his mob jobs. He decides to go with the mob. Only Samantha gets kidnapped, and Jerry has a lot of difficulties delivering the cursed gun.I think they're suppose to be white trash characters. They're way too pretty. Having these two A-listers may not be the right move. And it doesn't quite work as a comedy. Both Pitt and Roberts try very hard to be wacky. Pitt especially try hard to be stupid. The story is idiosyncratic wallowing in its quirkiness. None of it is particularly funny. However James Gandolfini does take an interesting turn as the kidnapper.