Get the Gringo: Mad Mel demolishes Mexico | TV/Streaming
Gibson, who co-wrote the film, is in his element as an anti-hero in "Payback" mode. He's gone to the trouble to steal a great deal of money, it's been taken from him after he's crashed his car (while clad in a clown costume, no less) into the border wall, and he wants it back. So far, so Mel.
But now, as they say, for something completely different. He's been dumped into El Pueblito, a teeming hellhole which is aptly described as either a prison or the world's (worst) mall, in which the inmates have taken over the black market asylum. From Coca-Cola to heroin, "You can buy anything," one character states, "except your way out."
Driver* (as he is identified in the credits), like Porter in "Payback," coolly and watchfully works the angles and keeps one step ahead of the real bad guys, with which "Gringo" is densely populated. There are the crooked Mexican border police who grab his loot, a corrupt U. S. Consulate official working both sides of the fence, El Pueblito's kingpin Javi (Daniel Gimenez Casho), the mobster (Peter Stormare) whose money Driver stole, and assorted henchmen.
Driver does have the good fortune to make the acquaintance of a 10-year-old boy (Kevin Hernandez, "The Sitter") who lives in El Pueblito with his imprisoned mother (Dolores Heredia). He shows the Driver the ropes, and the Driver vows to protect him from Javi, who has a special interest in the kid (no; not that).
His bond with mother and son is about as conventional as "Gringo" gets. The rest is an unhinged noir fever-dream, viscerally realized by director Adrian Grunberg, who served as Gibson's assistant director on "Apocalypto," and who collaborated on the mondo script along with Stacy Perskie. He may not always keep things straight, but he does keep them moving, immersing viewers in the dirt, squalor and chaos of the place.
"Get the Gringo" could be a game changer, if not for Gibson's PR challenged career (his last film, "The Beaver," did not break the $1 million mark) then for the way certain movies are distributed. If audiences for whatever reason won't go to see Gibson in theaters, then perhaps for $10.99, they might invite him into their homes. "Many people just like to see things in their homes," Gibson remarked at the film's one-night-only premiere in Austin, which was simulcast to nine other theatres across the country "It's just another way to do it... I think it's the future."
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