Gringo is a film desperate to be loved. Directed by Nash Edgerton and written by Anthony Tambakis and Matthew Stone, it’s supposed to be a madcap adventure about corporate greed and personal fulfillment. What it ends up being is a mean-spirited “comedy” that makes punchlines of fat people, sign language and all of Mexico. That “humor” is supposed to be bracingly subversive, but it feels cliché. Luckily, the cast is so committed and the production so slick, Edgerton nearly pulls it off.
The titular “gringo” is Harold Soyinka (David Oyelowo) a nice, somewhat pathetic guy whose life falls apart when his he realizes his best friend/boss Richard (Joel Edgerton, the director’s brother) is lying to him about a potential merger and his wife Bonnie (a criminally misused Thandie Newton) leaves him. Harold decides to get back at Richard and his other, meaner boss Elaine (Charlize Theron) by faking his own kidnapping while on a business trip to their company’s Mexican plant. What he doesn’t know, is that a local drug dealer named Black Panther (Carolos Carona, not T’Challa) is really trying to kidnap him. It’s a set up ripe for shenanigans and while they certainly ensue, they’re not as unpredictable and unique as Tambakis and Stone want us to think.
Take the way Black Panther always talks about the Beatles before he kills or mutilates someone. Or how about Richard’s crazy assassin-turned-humanitarian brother, who’s sent to bring Harold home? It’s all so affected, so deliberately weird, but it’s all stuff we’ve seen in a million other dark comedies. Gringo is a wannabe Snatch or Crank 2: High Voltage or even last year’s Logan Lucky, but with none of the cleverness of those films. Instead, Nash Edgerton uses a relentless pace, a constantly shifting focus and loud noises to make us think we’re having fun.
That said, some of the characters are genuinely enjoyable. Edgerton has played many broad-shouldered toughs, but Richard performs masculinity like he’s doing drag. His office is lined with pictures of him running with bulls in Spain or bungee jumping and he treats an office basketball league like the NBA playoffs. He’s utterly despicable and the audience gladly hates him. However, as good as Edgerton is at playing a dick bag, the character is totally outdone by Theron’s Elaine.
While many of the actors either play thankless roles (Newton) or will be embarrassed by the film later (everyone else), Theron seems like she’s having the time of her life. Elaine is an amoral monster, a kind of swaggering, foul-mouthed sociopath in the style of Alec Baldwin or Marlon Brando. She doesn’t care what people think of her unless they can give her something she wants. If Tambakis and Stone really wanted to be daring, she would be our protagonist. Unfortunately, in this world, women are barely people. They can only be amoral sluts (Theron), manic pixie dream girls (Amanda Seyfried) or duplicitous gold diggers who deserve to die fat and alone (Newton) and they’re all in service of Harold’s underdog narrative.
Harold is a classic underdog and in case the audience somehow misses that, another character tells us. And maybe that would be enough for most characters, but Harold’s personality is so messy that it’s hard to know who the hell he is. One minute he’s the victim of his duplicitous friends and the next he’s so cool under pressure that he manages to escape a couple of drug cartel heavies. Maybe his breakdown over his job and his failing marriage offer some justification, but it’s hard to believe he’s been such a loser for so long when he’s so quick on his feet. The implication is that Harold chooses to be good while others choose to be bad and if you’ve ever seen a movie before, you can probably guess who’s ultimately victorious. And while that conventionality is familiar, many audiences will inevitably like that tidy morality.
Though Gringo‘s desperation to be loved can grate, it’s also hard to argue that some audiences will love its ribald humor and hyper-active energy. And while one could criticize them for not wanting better entertainment, it’s really the filmmakers who deserve scorn. They made this film. They deserve all the shame.
Rating: 5/10
