4 out of 5

Director: Adrian Grunberg

Wow man, color me surprised. While ‘Get the Gringo’ stumbles a bit due to its “pause-review-voiceover” style, which ends up being mostly unnecessary, this is more than I could’ve hoped for in a post-we-respect-Mel-Gibson world. Similar to Tom Cruise – although he can still be cast in big budget – it’s hard to separate the man from the movies sometimes, which is too bad, because cast in the right roles, both of these actors can do wonders. And Mel did such an amazing job with the clever but human crook in Payback (yes, based on the Richard Stark Parker character), that seeing him in this unofficial sequel to that film – same unnamed character, same noir ideals – just made me wish for a string of these things, assuming they’re all executed and written as well. Because despite that overly-flashy narrative, which really only bothers the beginning, when we’re settling into things, director Adrian Grunberg does an excellent job of not insulting his audience with extra clutter and the script (thank you, Mel) plus research that went into the construction of things really makes the Mexican prison environment feel… real. I believe it. Basically we have an “honest” con who gets stuck in prison while trying to get back to his stolen money, meanwhile caught up in some prison dealing which effect some relative innocents in a way our unnamed lead just can’t tolerate. I hope Mel gets some due for this flick, because these are the roles he’s great at – flushed with anger when necessary, but filled with sneers and snide. The subtitles are nice, very unobtrusive, but the unsubtitled accents can be a bit hard to decipher if you’re not expecting it. Otherwise, structure stumbles aside, this was a really impressive flick.