THE MEXICAN

Have you ever noticed when Julia Roberts cries, she has a most distracting vein in her forehead? Well, it kind of creeps me out.

Jerry (Brad Pitt) and Samantha (Julia Roberts) have what we would call a strained relationship. This is complicated by the fact that Jerry works for some rather seedy people. Therein lies the plot of the movie. Jerry is sent to Mexico to retrieve a pistol that is said to be cursed. Of course, this simple task goes awry, and Samantha is taken as a hostage en route to Vegas to insure that Jerry comes back with the pistol.

From that point, there is what seems to be two completely different storylines that intersect at different points. There is Jerry running around like a chicken with his head cut off in Mexico and Samantha doing some serious bonding with her kidnapper on the road in the US. Both stories have some quite funny moments as well as dark, violent moments (which were unexpected and somewhat disturbing).

The supporting cast, namely James Gandolfini as Leroy the kidnapper, was quite good. Gandolfini puts a new twist on the tried-and-true hitman persona. David Krumholtz was perfectly creepy and slimy as an expatriate living in small-town Mexico. Even Gene Hackman shows up in a completely unexpected cameo appearance, but makes almost no impression. His character needed to be fleshed out a bit more or cut out all together.

The Mexican had gritty feel and was interesting to watch, but could have done it with less bullet-to-the-head gratuitous violence. Interestingly enough, there was a lot of potty humor that you just don’t see all that often in the movies.

Regardless of the fact that the film is a bit strange, there are those of you who are going to go see it anyways for the star power of Julia and Brad... and you'll probably end up having a good time.