Gringo (Nash Edgerton, 2018)
Posted: Mon Mar 19, 2018 1:10 am
I’ve been one of those people who sometimes bemoans the relative dearth of original, mid-budget studio efforts aimed at adults in an industry dominated by low-budget indies and mega-budget franchise entries, so occasionally it’s good to get a reminder that those movies can be just as pointless, undercooked, and uninteresting as the latest $200 million video-game/toy/amusement park ride adaptation aimed at twelve-year-olds. Nash Edgerton’s Gringo served as just such a reminder, and as a deflating answer to the question, “How bad could a movie with Charlize Theron, David Oyelowo, Joel Edgerton, Amanda Seyfried, Thandie Newton, and Sharlto Copley really be?”
Despite the heavily weed-themed marketing, this isn’t anything resembling a fun stoner comedy but instead an unfunny, overly-violent action comedy featuring kidnappings, mutilations, and lots of shootings between overwrought attempts by Oyelowo to be wacky and bad behavior by Edgerton and Theron that never manages to be on the right side of the deliciously wicked/boringly obnoxious divide. Newton and Seyfried’s characters are so neglected and ultimately unnecessary as to invoke sympathy for the actors for having wasted their time, and multiple other subplots/characters either never go anywhere or appear out of nowhere to conveniently resolve other plot complications. Turning the absurd humor dial up another notch or three could have made many of these flaws more tolerable and least kept the watch-checking impulse to a minimum, and - as much as I’ve liked Oyelowo elsewhere - this is probably the first movie I’ve ever seen where I actively wished midway through that Kevin Hart was playing the lead.
Despite the heavily weed-themed marketing, this isn’t anything resembling a fun stoner comedy but instead an unfunny, overly-violent action comedy featuring kidnappings, mutilations, and lots of shootings between overwrought attempts by Oyelowo to be wacky and bad behavior by Edgerton and Theron that never manages to be on the right side of the deliciously wicked/boringly obnoxious divide. Newton and Seyfried’s characters are so neglected and ultimately unnecessary as to invoke sympathy for the actors for having wasted their time, and multiple other subplots/characters either never go anywhere or appear out of nowhere to conveniently resolve other plot complications. Turning the absurd humor dial up another notch or three could have made many of these flaws more tolerable and least kept the watch-checking impulse to a minimum, and - as much as I’ve liked Oyelowo elsewhere - this is probably the first movie I’ve ever seen where I actively wished midway through that Kevin Hart was playing the lead.