Mourning becomes Electra (3/14/01)
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The Mexican. [Gore Verbinski, 2001. Written by J. H. Wyman.]
Career incompetent Brad Pitt has spent several years as an accidentprone Mob errand boy, trying unsuccessfully to work off the debt he incurred when, in a typical lapse, he sideswiped the car of Mister Big [Gene Hackman, actually, but we only find this out toward the end] and inadvertently allowed the police to discover a body in the trunk — trying unsuccessfully, since, as the Deputy Boss hastens to point out, he fucks up every job they assign him. But this time for sure: Pitt is dispatched to a seedy bar in a small town in the Mexican outback to recover a rare and valuable pistol; which, it develops, carries a curse acquired when the gunsmith who made it tried to marry his beautiful daughter off to an asshole nobleman and not her poor but deserving true love. [Or something like that; the backstory develops in several installments of flashback, and doesn’t take reliable shape until the penultimate crisis.] Naturally Pitt’s luck is no better on this expedition than on any previous, but while he’s bungling the mission the several factions intent on obtaining the pistol for their own nefarious purposes, erring on the side of optimism, contend for possession of his estranged girlfriend Julia Roberts, who, though she has decided to write him off as a loss and seek her fortune in Las Vegas, seems plausible as a hostage; after a violent dispute over right of possession is resolved in his favor, she ends up taking an extended road trip with gay hitman James Gandolfini — with whom, the names above the title notwithstanding, she develops the most interesting relationship in the picture, disarming his presumably predatory nature with an avalanche of psychobabble and absorbing in turn a renewed faith in the power of Love. — Pitt, in the meantime, rockets rather aimlessly up and down the Mexican blue highways in an antique pickup, accompanied by a familiar spirit which has taken the form of a junkyard dog. — In due course the parted lovers are reunited to quarrel through the [suitably protracted] final chase; and, after a very clever series of surprises, reversals, discoveries, and, naturally, carchases and gunfights, Love [and Star Power] triumph over all, the pistol is restored to its rightful owner, and the viewer is persuaded of the virtues of fleabag hotels, battered old cars, and Manly Love.
Lopsided structure or no, this nearly worked. But it leaves me wondering when John Woo will direct a romantic comedy; say, a remake of
Pierrot le Fou [though naturally with better gunfights.] — Brad could do Belmondo, I’m sure of that. But let’s see Julia’s Anna Karina.
____________Boys meet girl (2/28/01)
