Watch Old Gringo For Free

What a freaking movie. So many twists and turns. Absolutely intense from start to finish.

Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.

There is more soul in this film than in 50 'modern' films.While there is a lot of bad acting, and many other flaws in this movie, there are some GREAT scenes, great dialog, great characters, and great performances. Gregory Peck has some very memorable, outstanding monologues, there are many interesting and complex relationships, and there are no simple resolutions to conflicts.Again- there are many areas of the film that do not work: doesn't matter, ignore them. There is tremendous depth here, and a lot of value to draw from the good parts of this movie. Peck and Smits are great, and even Fonda has some excellent moments.They don't make 'em like this any more, and they don't make actors like Peck.

Mix a sexually repressed teacher(Fonda),a fiery revolutionary(Smits), and a dying author(Peck) with hundreds of Mexican extras, mariachi's, romance, pretty photography and you've got Old Stinko: a boring, lackluster cliché ridden waste of time for all involved. Essentially, it's The Rainmaker(56) set against the background of the Mexican Revolution. This misbegotten project lacks a purpose for being and never really involves the audience. Smits is cliché but less ridiculous than the other 2 characters who suck the life out of the movie and get in the way of the background which while pretty and pleasing to the eye is too pretty and overblown for the sketchy story being told. Peck plays Ambrose Bierce like Atticus Finch, and the scenes between he and Fonda recall Atticus and Scout in To Kill a Mockingbird. As the wide eyed pupil/teacher Fonda is unconvincing and embarrassing, and Peck is a hollow bore. The people involved in this project should have asked themselves Why will audiences care? They didn't, and the film was a box office and critical disappointment. Just ignore it, and it will go away.

I watched this movie a few times trying to figure out why it left me feeling slightly let down. I couldn't figure it out. All the right elements are there. The dramatic situation is terrific, the overall story line good, the actors top-flight. The technical work is good, but somehow the movie never finds it's story. This is a classic example of a movie that misses the point. Jane Fonda plays an old maid school "marm" who decides to go to Mexico to see the world. She winds up being kidnapped by one Pancho Villa's Generals. Along the way, Ambrose Bierce(played by Gregory Peck), joins them. Mr. Bierce who has a mysterious illness, and is bitterly tired of life, more than anything wants to die a glorious death on the battlefield instead of dying in bed. He can't succeed at this no matter how hard he tries. Along the way Ms. Winslow has dalliances with both men. Gen Arroyo (Smits) and Ambrose Bierce develop a Father/Son kind of thing. With a situation like this, how could it misfire? Here's how.The story is directed as if it were about Jane Fondas relationships with the two men, when in reality the movie is about the terrible internal strife of Gen. Arroyo, and his love/hate for his father, who comes to be personified by Mr. Bierce. What adds interest is the fact that his conflict encapsulates the overall meaning of the revolution, and in an even larger sense, of Mexico. In some ways the whole scope of the history of Mexico can be seen as a working out of the Father/Son relationship. The Father is represented by Spain, the conqueror, and the Son by the people of the land. Spain, as did most European colonial powers, regarded new people and cultures as basically subhuman. The only problem is that they couldn't kill enough of the original inhabitants. They keep wanting their country back. In some ways the political situation in Mexico today reflects this dynamic. Almost all the ruling class families in Latin America trace their ancestry to Spain. The indigenous people still don't govern themselves. Harriet Winslow (Fonda) is only there to provide viewpoint. She influences none of the action and carries none of the meaning. The ideas of this movie were presented later in the Pancho Villa movie with Antonio Banderas in a much better fashion. This is worth a view, though. It's still an enjoyable movie, just one that never found it's point.

In 1913, Harriet Winslow (Jane Fonda) is hired by a Mexican family as a governess, but she then is kidnapped by Gen Tomas Arroyo (Jimmy Smits) and along with other revolutionaries. She also meets Ambrose Bierce (Gregory Peck), who conceals his true identity and who is ready to die on this foreign land. The three of them form a love triangle, Harriet becomes Tomas's lover and her affection towards Bierce is rather like a daughter to a father. But when Tomas invades the house of Miranda, where his birth father, the master, rapes his mother and where his shoots Mr Miranda dead when he is seventeen, he becomes so haunted by his past and obsessed with the old papers. As he befriends Bierce, he also turns into a ruthless commander. In the end, things get tragic- Harriet is determined to fulfill Bierce' dying wish of not being publicised and Tomas has to face his ultimate punishment. Harriet now is the sole survivor who remembers her two beloved men. 'He said I would forget. But how could I not remember?'I really like this film. Jimmy Smits is excellent as the tormented general and Gregory Peck was marvellous as the disillusioned writer and journalist. Jane Fonda is not too bad. The direction is okay, the story is very poignant and twisted. All in all, a nicely done drama.