Review: Gringo Isn't As Advertised
- Jun 1, 2018
- 2 min read
I've been looking forward to Gringo for sometime. Aside from have a very funny trailer, it featured a cast containing some of my favourite actors. And sometimes all that promise just can't deliver.
Middle manager Harold (David Oyelowo) has been abandoned by everyone he knows. His wife has left him, he's been brushed off by his boss Richard (Joel Edgerton) and even Richard's mistress Elaine (Charlize Theron). Throw in some difficulties with the Mexican cartel, a wayward business trip and mercenary turned aid worker Mitch (Sharlto Copley) sent to retrieve him and Harold is in for a hell of a time. Oh, and Amanda Seyfried is in this movie for some reason.
Gringo suffers from having no idea what it wants to be. The first act feels like an overly long corporate drama, the second like a conventional comedy, and the third like a neutered dark comedy. As it turns out, that’s not a good way to make a movie. While many of Gringo’s elements are good, Oyelowo is very funny, Copley has some excellent moments and there are a smattering of laugh out loud moments throughout, so much of the film flip-flops between boring exposition, strangely graphic violence and a plot and characters so pointless that the only thing their removal would change is the films’ already overly long runtime.
I like a good dark comedy, see my reviews of Three Billboards and The Death Of Stalin for evidence of that, but Gringo is lacking what makes a good dark comedy. Firstly, it isn't funny, and secondly, it isn't dark, nor is it very good. It lacks that fine line between dark and darkly comic, preferring to have out and out comedy or just its strange sense of not quite thrilling industrial espionage. It doesn't help that there are about 5 actual jokes spread across the whole film, causing more than a little tonal whiplash.
There's a good movie hidden away here somewhere. Between a great cast of very good actors and a solidly humourus plot, Gringo should have been yet another quality comedy for 2018. Instead it's a mostly humourless drag with the occasional moment of levity.
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