Review: Gringo

Gringo (2018) - Nash Edgerton

       Gringo was advertised as a lot of different things, I'm guessing in a hope to give everybody SOMETHING to say, "oh hey!" It's a comedy with boob jokes and swearing, so that's a start. But also it's a dark comedy about kidnapping! So there's gonna be some, ya know, pretty crazy stuff a-happening. It's about weed, too, right? It's got those weed pills? And action! Because god forbid we make a comedy movie these days without at least three jarring head shots and multiple car chases. But it also has one hell of an ensemble cast! Charlize Theron? David Oyelowo? Thandie Newton, Joel Edgerton, and Amanda Seyfried? Well sonofabitch, I'm interested now. I went into Gringo with low expectations, the premise seemed simple enough, and I really do like that entire cast (even Sharlto Copely is fun when someone isn't encouraging him to just be as weird as possible *cough cough* Oldboy), and I hoped that the movie would pick one or two of those ideas mentioned above and be able to explore one of them into a halfway decent comedy, one that, ya know, hopefully made me laugh. Welp, director Nash Edgerton and writers Anthony Tambakis and Matthew Stone heard those notes, considered them, and decided to say, "Nah! Let's not do that at all!"

       David Oyelowo stars as Harold Soyinka, the extremely downtrodden and exploited husband and pharmaceutical middle-management stooge (why do 97% of comedies have to star people who everyone treats like shit? It's exhausting before the credits even finish). His wife (Newton) is spending all his money AND cheating on him, his bosses (Theron and Edgerton) take straight advantage of him every day, secretly stuffing him on insurance, and lying to his face about his future in the company when they probably sell the whole thing int he next few months, leaving Harold completely penniless. And this is all, like, in the first twelve minutes of the movie. Trust me, guys, everyone treats Harold like shit. You don't even need a good actor like David Oyelowo to act as him, just draw a frowny face on a punching bag and throw that from set to set.
       Well, they all go down to Mexico to buy a new weed pill (other than the mention of a weed pill, no comedy or humor or plot importance about drugs follows, which I guess is a relief, because this movie would not have done drug comedy well either, but it still seems weird to make it such an integral part of the marketing), or to sell a new weed pill, I have no idea to be honest. Soyinka realizes that his bosses are screwing him over and decides to stay in Mexico and try and get his. Of course, hijinks ensue. The cartel gets involved, doe-eyed Amanda Seyfried shows up in Mexico with her boyfriend on a separate but overlapping mule trip, there are several different kidnapping plots, his boss calls his ex-mercenary brother to go to Mexico and find, oh and also there's a subplot about...ugh, god, who cares?

       Does that sound busy? Does that sound needlessly complicated and like it might be so much narrative rigmarole that you can barely find time to focus on any comedy? Well, it should because it is.  This movie, like a lot of comedy movies, feels like it wasn't confident enough in its jokes so in an attempt to make the movie more solid they add unnecessary sub plots about completely unfunny things (cartel drug lords torturing people, per se) and action set-pieces that don't help long enough to distract from the lack of laughing I'm doing.
       My least favorite thing about this movie, however, is that the comedy that is in the movie is mostly cruel and stupid. Theron and Edgerton are terrible people. Selfish, oblivious to others, and just generally awful. And that's...funny? They don't actually say or do funny things, they're just there to be awful. Theron swears, flirts, and makes sexual innuendos to sell pills, and I guess we're just supposed to think it's funny because it's Charlize Theron doing it? Because she's a serious actress? Welp, just because it's her being constantly racist to Mexican people and also calling people "retards," doesn't make it funny. It just makes it more mind-boggling it's her in such a hodge-podge of a movie.

       It really doesn't work. There are some action scenes that, on their own were kind of fun, but mostly because the movie's non-comedy comedy was so boring I was excited for ANYTHING slightly different happening. But the movie doesn't know how to reign that in either, splashing the movie with out-of-nowhere violence that doesn't fit into the tone the movie spent the first forty-five minutes creating. Everyone in this cast is serviceable and for the most part seems to be trying (I think? I guess? I really can't tell, with this movie), but its crushed under the weight of its own cruel non-comedy and muddled plotting. Not funny enough to be a good comedy, not smart enough to be a good story, and not exciting enough to be a good action movie. After doing a light IMDB search I discovered director Nash Edgerton (Nash. Is not. A name.) is a longtime stunt director and only recently began directing. It all shows, and I don't think he's quite there yet to be able to control an entire story. I also discovered that he's brothers with the movie's star Joel Edgerton (Joel is basically a name, I GUESS), and that kiiind of makes sense as to how he was able to get so many A-list actors in this crapfest? Oof, I I got sassy and I really didn't mean to. Bye!

Amanda Seyfried trying to remember what the fuck she is doing in this movie. She can't.

Grade: That feeling when you spend all day really tired and just dying to be able to go home so you can finally go to sleep but when you get home you know you're going to just stay up really late anyway watching youtube videos. (2 out of 5?)