Brad & Julia Are More Than Just Hired Guns in The Mexican

The Mexican (new in theaters March 2nd) is one of those delightfully offbeat surprises that will have you feeling good about plopping down whatever admission price the local cineplex is seeing fit to charge these days ($10 New Yorkers?! I feel for ya). It's the kind of movie you go into expecting one thing, and you come out of it having seen something entirely different. I thought "The Mexican" was going to be a quirky, funny, post-Tarantino star vehicle for Brad Pitt and Julia Roberts. It's definitely that. But it is so much more.

Pitt plays Jerry, a very funny slacker-doofus who got in deep with the mob years ago for crashing into a gangster's car and getting him arrested. As the film opens, Jerry is given one last chance to do a job right: go to Mexico and retrieve a legendary pistol known as "The Mexican." But Jerry is having relationship problems. His girlfriend, Samantha (Roberts), is a constant nag. She knows way too much about pop psychology, throwing around terms like "projecting" and "blame shifting" that only serve to confuse Jerry. Samantha wants to go to Las Vegas with or without him. Jerry has to do what the mob tells him.

Audiences may be surprised that Pitt and Roberts spend most of the movie apart from one another, but that is just the nature of the story. It helps that Jerry gets into all sorts of misadventures South of the border, ranging from his rental car being stolen to misplacing his passport to coping with a vicious, yet oddly loyal pooch.

Meanwhile, Samantha is nabbed by a hitman (James Gandolfini) as insurance that Jerry will finish the job. Now I know it's only March 1st, but I am already calling next year's Best Supporting Actor race. The Academy can pack up the statue now and send it to the home of one James Gandolfini, because the competition is over. Gandolfini absolutely steals this show as a gay hitman who becomes Samantha's emotional confidante as the two move from place to place. Gandolfini is the film's heart and soul. The guy can go from sensitive tears one moment to ice-cold brutality the next, and his unforced chemistry with Roberts is the film's biggest selling point. Gandolfini plays the character as a wounded soul, quite good yet understandably alone within his profession. To the movie's credit, it never panders to any stereotypes.

I especially liked how "The Mexican" had a lot to say about fate. We come to learn that the accident Jerry got into years earlier has affected not just his life, but the lives of everyone around him. It was one tiny moment, one tiny mistake, and his hope is that finding this mythic gun will finally put his life back on course. But even the pistol has its own tainted history. Several legends have sprung up around it. Is it a cursed weapon? Does it bring tragedy to whomever possesses it? Or, is it destined for the right hand to fire it?

There is no question this movie is in the right hands with director Gore Verbinski. But is Verbinski's movie perfect? Not by a long shot. A couple of characters seemingly come back from the dead at different times in the picture. One early sequence is so poorly edited that the audience thinks Pitt is burying one guy, and it turns out to be another guy entirely. There is also some uncertainty about why The Mexican misfires in one instance and doesn't misfire in another.

But if I have one major problem with "The Mexican," it's in the marketing of the movie by Dreamworks. Now, I pride myself on never giving away big plot twists. I take great pains not to reveal the ending of a movie in a review, unlike some other critics who will go nameless. Unfortunately, I am going to break this rule just this one time. If you don't want to know how "The Mexican" ends, please stop reading now. In fact, I also implore you to not look at any commercials for this film. Do not even look at the poster. Why? Because the commercials and the poster give away the FREAKING ENDING OF THE MOVIE!!! Aargh!

I mean, seriously, if there are any Dreamworks' people reading this, tell me why your studio didn't have enough faith in this wonderful picture to protect whether Pitt and Roberts end up together at the end. The whole movie I am waiting for that scene that plays over and over again in the commercials and is featured
prominently on the poster of the two stars kissing. Little did I know that it takes place immediately following the movie's would-be tense climax. Now, yes, 95 percent of all Hollywood movies have a happy ending. Of course, Brad and Julia are going to be together in the end. But, jeez, why break the illusion before the movie even opens?

This is a disturbing trend that I thought had peaked last year with "What Lies Beneath" (the ads gave away that Harrison Ford was a bad guy) and "Cast Away" (Hey, Tom Hanks gets off the island!) Just imagine if back in the day, the ads for "The Wizard of Oz" showed Dorothy bawling, "There's no place like home!" Just imagine if the original commercials for "Star Wars" showed the Death Star exploding. Just imagine if the ads for "Titanic" showed the ship sinking and ... OK, bad example.

Alright, I'll come down off my soapbox now. It's just that I take my movies seriously. "The Mexican" is a good movie that you can either take seriously as a meditation on life, death, fate, and true love, or you can go to it and just enjoy the gunplay and the many funny moments.

Here's hoping it will be Numero Uno at the box office this weekend.