It’s a testament to Gibson’s charm that I enjoyed the movie as much as I did.
No matter what your personal opinion of Mel Gibson is, there’s little to debate about his acting ability. Before he ran into legal and personal troubles in the late 2000s, he was a bankable film star and an exceptionally well-regarded director. Since 2011, he has slowly been emerging from a career decline. 2012’s Get the Gringo, an action/crime film, was one of his first forays back into the limelight.
Gibson stars as a career criminal who finds himself thrown into El Pueblito, a Mexican prison, after a robbery goes wrong. This prison isn’t anything like one would expect. Gibson’s character, Driver, likens it to the world’s shittiest mall. There are food stands, tattoo booths, and heroin dealers freely doing business all under the watchful eye of Javi (Daniel Giménez Cacho), the prison’s top dog.
Navigating the rather tricky hierarchy of the prison will require some assistance. Driver finds it in Kid (Kevin Hernandez), a street-smart 10-year-old who knows the prison’s major players rather intimately. Driver, who becomes known as “The Gringo,” has attracted attention thanks to the amount of money he was nabbed for stealing. American and Mexican factions, including corrupt cops and criminals, have him on their radar as a person of interest. Driver and Kid find they each have something to gain from a working relationship.
What struck me most about Get the Gringo was how much I’ve missed Mel Gibson’s presence in a film. I haven’t seen him in front of the camera since 2002’s Signs. The script, which he co-wrote, showcases his trademark on-screen wit and personality and the action scenes are believable for a man of his age. If you enjoyed Gibson as Martin Riggs in the Lethal Weapon films, you should have a good time with this one. He’s playing to his strengths here.
That said, the script isn’t exactly charting new territory. While I can’t say that I know much about the inside of a Tijuana prison, the story is full of prison-film tropes, brutal violence, and general grimy unpleasantness. It’s a testament to Gibson’s charm that I enjoyed the movie as much as I did.
I was surprised to learn Get the Gringo was directed by Adrian Grunberg, the same man responsible for last year’s abysmal Rambo: Last Blood. The films are polar opposites in how to make a movie with an aging action star. This one is the better example.
3.5 out of 5.0 stars
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