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Summary: Even with mega-superstar powers of Brad Pitt and
Julia Roberts, "The Mexican" is not a very good movie. It
failed to entertain me. The storyline is rather shallow and pace of
the movie was slow. I wasn't impressed with "The Mexican" at
all. Even fans of Pitt and Roberts should skip this film. I
consider this a dud from DreamWorks, but that's OK. Even the very best
studios will have their share of duds.
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The Story
"The Mexican" refers to a rare, priceless,
antique pistol which is the subject of a Mexican folktale/legend. When
Jerry (Brad Pitt) gets into trouble with his crime family, he has to
undertake an assignment to clear his name -- the last assignment before he
goes "legit". The assignment seems easy enough: go to Mexico
to find and retrieve "The Mexican" pistol. In the meantime,
his fiancée, Samantha (Julia Robert) is impatient and is holding him to his
agreement to get married in Las Vegas that weekend. After a
loud quarrel outside of their apartment, the two go their separate
ways. Samantha goes to Vegas and waits for Jerry to get married.
Jerry heads south to Mexico to complete his last assignment in order to
clear his name and leave the crime business. That's when their
high-flying comedic mis-adventures begin.
Though Brad Pitt and Julia Roberts are two very big names
as far as movie stars go, "The Mexican" failed to entertain
me. The chemistry between Pitt and Roberts just didn't work, even
though they had very few scenes together. The movie seems quite slow
and the comedic references were not that funny as they were also far and few
in between. I was quite disappointed with this movie as it failed to
tickle my funny bone. Even fans of Pitt and Roberts should pass up on
this movie. (And I consider myself to be pretty big fans of both
actors.) The screenplay's attempts at interpersonal drama almost
worked, but it left me unsatisfied. The ending is unique but not
worthwhile after having to watch two hours of nonsense.
The Extras
"The Mexican" comes with the following bonus features:
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Audio commentary from director Gore Verbinsi
plus other fimmakers
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Deleted scenes complete with filmmakers' commentary: 7
in all, entitled "It's Frank", "Why can't We Be
Friends?", "You Don't Know Me", "Marriage Is a Big
Thing", "To America", "The Wedding", "It's
Cursed, That Gun", "A Dull Ache"
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HBO's "The Making of The Mexican"
behind-the-scenes featurette
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In-depth production notes and detailed cast and
filmmaker biographies
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Theatrical teaser and trailer
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Production notes
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Booklet (2 pages)
Video & Audio
The image quality of this anamorphic
widescreen DVD is excellent. The colors are accurate and
saturated. There is very good shadow detail. Both the DTS
and Dolby
Digital 5.1 soundtracks are well balanced with good use of the surround channels.
I prefer the DTS surround sound version, as it seems to add more resolution
and its sound is more filling and solid, especially at reference volume levels. The dialog
is crystal clear.
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Associated equipment used in evaluation: Sony
DVP-S7700 reference DVD player, Sony
KP-61V45 61" rear projection TV (4:3 screen aspect ratio), Sony ES
STR-V444ES A/V receiver, NHT 2.1 as left/right main speakers, NHT 1.1C center channel speaker, NHT
SuperZero as surround speakers, Monster Cable M-series S-Video cable MSV-500, Monster
Cable Interlink LightSpeed 100 (Toslink) optical cable, Monster Cable XP speaker
wires, and Sony MDR-V600 studio monitor headphones. Our home theater equipment was calibrated
with the Video
Essentials DVD.
Be sure to check out our Top 10 DVDs of the year
2001 and our list of this year's Oscar winners on DVD.
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United We Stand
