Get the Gringo

Mel Gibson manned up and prepared an unorthodox drama from the prison environment in Mexico for his fans. A lot of things are hard to believe, but on the other hand, the movie is really nice to watch. Mel is properly macho, although he can show his emotions pretty well, too. But his schizophrenic character didn’t stop me from enjoying this well-made American-style action movie like from the good old 1990s. I thought it was a great throwback, and I’d love to see Mel in many more movies like this one. (03/23/2014)

"I was tortured by a Mariachi." Having given five stars to Payback, I can't give less to Get the Gringo. In fact, the film is equal to its older sibling in every way (and yes, even I claim that it is an unacknowledged sequel). Mel Gibson has simply returned to where I love him best, to those rough, straightforward waters in which he swims in unison, armed with equal measures of sarcasm and charm, and his actions in a simple but brilliantly contrived plot are a joy to behold. Just consider how many memorable moments Get the Gringo contains: The clowns, the bizarre prison, the top-notch shootout, "Clint Eastwood", the umbrella scene (which is probably the best in the whole film), the cornflake ending... It's just a really great piece of work. With perfect music and extremely confident debutant direction. (06/22/2012)

Gibson is back! A strange combination of a farce and a tough prison drama. The fact is that Get the Gringo revolves around Mel’s pretty face, his ability to get to grips with any problem and a good balance of humor and gloom. The action here is uncompromising blood splatter with a few nice ideas. This untraditional insight into the Mexican prison system would be a shame to miss and for Mel’s fans this is a balm to sooth the soul. Now what we need is a screenplay for Lethal Weapon 5... directed by Shane Black and everything will be fine. There's nothing worse than a sad clown... unless it's a clown bleeding internally and coughing it all over your money. (05/20/2012)

Though Get the Gringo is communicative in a post-modern way, it very much comes across as a standard (chili) western. The nameless gringo finds himself in a strange environment, with offscreen exaggerated commentary reminiscent of Anthony Bourdain talking about his foreign adventures in No Reservations, and inserts himself into a conflict between two opposing factions for his own benefit. Instead of Gibson, Eastwood in the lead role would surely have known what to do thanks to his “Italian jobs”. Unfortunately, the impactfulness of the clearly readable western formula is undermined by (co-screenwriter) Gibson’s self-serving attempt to return to the big leagues, which fully corresponds to the “cynical asshole” category (in which he has placed himself many times in the real world). Though the family storyline exhibits an unusually large percentage of scenes in which violence is inflicted on a woman and child (just as socially inappropriate smoking is often shown in the film), the adoption of the role of surrogate father doesn’t fit very well with the tough-guy essence of the film. The unreadable protagonist, who came from nowhere and should go back there, begins to get emotionally involved from the beginning and suddenly the same is expected of us. But why root for a guy whom we actually know nothing about? Also, in light of the number of people whom he kills in cold blood, I would rather stick with my initial impression that he’s just as much a bastard as the others, but slightly more cunning. In non-Hollywood westerns based on the Italian model, that worked superbly, so why drag emotions into it now? 60% (05/10/2012)

Mixed feelings. An average action flick that looks like made for TV with cool moments, wannabe cool moments, smart moments, dumb moments, thrilling moments and boring moments alternating at irregular intervals. Overall, it’s not bad, the last remaining fans of Mel Gibson (both of them) will be happy, but I’m surely not going back to it. (05/12/2012)