Review of Get the Gringo (2012) by Stephen M — 19 May 2012

I like Mel Gibson, the actor. Mel Gibson (the actor) for me has a pretty strong track record of delivering good earthy performances, most recently in 'The Beaver', a soulful examination of a completely broken man.

This is the opposite of that. A supposedly clever gritty action script about a mysterious protagonist who gets busted just over the Mexican border with $2m of cash in his car. He's buried in the system at 'El Pueblito', a strange shanty town of a jail, which really as a concept deserved a much better movie than this!

The characters introduced in El Pueblito are largely forgettable - the mother and child we're meant to root for feel one-dimensional, the criminal overlords even moreso - and really the lack of fleshed-out characters is the movies biggest flaw.

Ultimately I was left disinterested by the time the movie played out - not enough character for a drama, not enough action for an action movie (what action there is feels pedestrian and plodding - with one notable exception towards the end of the movie when a shootout breaks out in El Pueblito).

Oh well, maybe next time Mel...