/ 18 May 2001

As crime goes by

Crime is one of the major streams of film narrative. Some movies – such as Pulp Fiction or this week’s release The Mexican – even exist in a criminal world apparently altogether free of police personnel.

The Mexican must have put tears of joy into the eyes of its Hollywood producers. It puts The Sexiest Man in the WorldTM and The Most Attractive Woman in the WorldTM on the same screen. Moreover, The Most Attractive Woman in the WorldTM has just won an Oscar for her performance in Erin Brockovich, so she’s riding high. At any rate, before that she was one of Hollywood’s biggest box-office attractions.

So here we have Brad Pitt and Julia Roberts in the same movie, though they don’t actually spend much time in the same frame. It’s a pity because when they are on screen together you can feel that genuine crackle of chemistry that could propel a love story or a romantic comedy into the stratosphere. We also don’t have any significant torso time with Brad, but you can’t have everything.

Jerry (Pitt) is a small-time crook given to messing up his assignments; he has to get this one right or he’ll be forfeiting his life. That’s not okay with girlfriend Sam (Roberts), who wants him out of the life of crime. As soon as Jerry heads off to Mexico to pick up a quasi-legendary old pistol (the “Mexican” of the title) for his gangster boss, she is off to Vegas to pursue her dream of becoming a croupier. Apart from a fiery scene between Pitt and Roberts at the start (she’s magnificent when she’s angry), they will not meet again till the movie’s end.

Thus their stories move along separately but in parallel, as the bumbling Jerry (bringing Pitt’s comic talents to the fore) pursues the elusive firearm, and Sam gets kidnapped by a hit man (James Gandolfini, doing a fine twist on his Sopranos persona) to ensure Jerry’s cooperation.

The Mexican is an enjoyable comedy-thriller, with much wit and much (unexpected) human emotion. It’s not a great masterpiece by any means, but it is fun, despite its flaws. I did have a problem with it on the, ahem, ideological level: while the heterosexual couple (The Sexiest Couple in the WorldTM?) get to ride off into the metaphorical sunset, the gay couple is dispensible. Hooray for Hollywood. Stylistically, the film’s main problem is that it should have been taken at a much snappier pace; sometimes it feels like it is strolling along at the speed of a European art movie.

he other film this week that comes at crime from a bit of an angle, The Pledge, makes no bones about ambling at art-movie pace (though the parade of big-star cameos does help keep one’s eye on the screen – Helen Mirren, Harry Dean Stanton, Vanessa Redgrave, Sam Shepard). Directed by Sean Penn, it falls into the genre of what used to be called an “existential thriller” – that is, it’s

not very thrilling but it’s very existential.

Jack Nicholson plays an old cop who’s about to retire, only to get involved in one last case, the brutal rape and murder of a child. He makes a pledge to find the killer and keeps investigating the case even after retirement, and his concern with it mounts toward obsession.

Nicholson gives a great, grounded performance, one free of tics or twiddles, as a man who finally becomes enmeshed in unbearable ironies and ambiguities. The watchful eye of Penn’s sympathetic, gently mobile camera allows Nicholson to flesh out his character fully, even in the absence of much backstory, and it works. Be patient, though.