Review: "Gringo"

"Gringo" is a strange movie, and a hard one to review. I didn't particularly like it. Didn't particularly hate it, either. If there's a cinematic equivalent of eating a sustaining meal without ever really tasting your food, this is it.

I think it was going for a mix of comedy, action and intrigue, perhaps along the lines of "Midnight Run." Certainly, it did not achieve this.

The most notable thing about the movie is how forgettable it is... quite literally. I saw the film last night, got busy with other things, and forgot that I had to write this review.

Charlize Theron is pretty much the only thing interesting or compelling about it. She plays Elaine Markinson, the co-president of a shady pharmaceutical company that is developing a pill that copies the psychotropic effects of marijuana, while also playing footsie with the Mexican cartel on the side. There's a scene where they pitch the drug to an even bigger company, talking about how rapidly marijuana is becoming legalized.

I kept waiting for someone to ask why if pot is heading toward universal legality, anyone needs to buy a pill that simulates it?

Anyway, Elaine is a real piece of work, a land shark with absolutely no regard for others. Swims, eats, and f*cks, baby.

There's a pivotal scene where she berates herself for momentarily showing signs of basic humanity, which she interprets as weakness. A former beauty queen who enthusiastically wields sex as a weapon, Elaine divides the world into winners, and everybody else. "Guilt is for losers" is her mantra.

Her partner is Richard Rusk (Joel Edgerton), her gender opposite but spiritual mirror, so there's no surprise the two are carrying on an affair. Though the word "affair" connotes some sort of emotional connection, of which neither is capable. Richard is the type of guy who, when he's thirsty, doesn't bother asking his secretary to fetch him something, simply bellowing into the intercom, "I'm thirsty."

The ostensible main character is Harold Soyinka (David Oyelowo), a Nigerian immigrant who has discovered the American Dream isn't what it's cracked up to be. Married to a spendthrift (Thandie Newton, utterly wasted) who has driven them deep into debt, Harold is the quintessential white knight, a guy who believes that those who do good will find it returned to them.

Harold believes Richard is his friend, who gave him a job out of kindness. He couldn't be more wrong.

The running joke is that everybody in the movie is on some level out to get Harold. He's the patsy, the pushover, the naïf, the guy who's kept in the dark until it's time to pin something on him. Even one character, who shows up rather late in the game and whose mission is to save Harold, ends up trying to turn the screws to his advantage.

Harold has been making regular trips down to Mexico to oversee the company's operation there. Some inventory has turned up missing, which concerns him. He's also heard the company, Prometheon, may be swallowed up by a much larger competitor and he'll likely be out of work. Still, he soldiers on, doing good by everyone he interacts with -- even bringing Chicago barbecue to their head of security south of the border (Yul Vazquez).

What he doesn't know is Richard and Elaine have been secretly selling part of their stock to a Mexican drug lord. On the latest trip down south, things go awry, some blood is spilled and Harold is made wise to all those who have betrayed him.

Finally growing some moxie, Harold remembers the company has a kidnapping insurance policy for their executives, and hatches a scheme to blackmail them for $5 million. But it turns out Harold is worth more to them dead than a live, and soon it's all chase-chase and bang-bang.

Sitting on the sidelines of the story, without ever really providing a clear view of their role in it, are Amanda Seyfried and Harry Treadaway as Sunny and Miles, American tourists who have an ulterior purpose for their trip to Mexico.

Sharlto Copley turns up as a mercenary hired to rescue, then kill, Harold. He's recently had a change of heart and vocation in his own life, but we'll see if his newly kinder, gentler instincts will prevail.

Directed by Nash Edgerton (Joel's brother) from a script by Matthew Stone and Anthony Tambakis, "Gringo" is the sort of cinematic fodder that arrives in between behemoth releases, and is quickly crushed and forgotten. And probably deserves to be.

Video review: "2012"

Prior to its release, people had great fun making sport of the trailers for "2012." That's because the previews fairly represented the film for what it is: A ridiculous, over-the-top disaster movie that exists as its own parody.

The producers got the last laugh. Though "2012" was a modest hit here in the U.S., it banked more than $600 million overseas.

Director Roland Emmerich ("The Day After Tomorrow," "Independence Day") is an old hand at disaster flicks, and piles on what audiences want: Big computer-generated scenes of mayhem, interrupted by weepy human moments where people clutch one another and despair at the earthquakes/tidal waves/meteors rolling in to wipe them out.

John Cusack plays a loser who gets a shot to play hero when he uncovers a conspiracy by world leaders to cover up the fact that the planet's continental plates are about to start smashing into one another, turning the Earth's surface into an upended jigsaw puzzle.

He gathers up his ex-wife and kids, facing gaping chasms, falling buildings, crashing airplanes and much more in their quest to survive.

It's tremendously silly stuff, but also terrifically entertaining if you don't take it too seriously.
Extra features vary widely according to the video format.

The DVD version comes with an alternate ending, deleted scenes, Adam Lambert's "Time for Miracles" music video, featurette on Emmerich's history with disaster flicks, and a commentary track by Emmerich and co/writer Harald Kloser.

Among other things in the commentary, they reveal that the role of the U.S. president was written as a woman, but when Barack Obama started doing well in the Democratic primaries they switched it to an African-American role, played by Danny Glover.

A single-disc Blu-ray version includes the commentary, alternate ending and a picture-in-picture feature of additional comments and footage with cast and crew.

The two-disc Blu-ray includes all the features listed above, plus several more.

There's a Mayan calendar including a horoscope function, featurettes covering the science behind the destruction, production design and actors' perspective, and a digital copy of the film.

Movie: 3.5 stars
Extras: 3.5 stars

Review: "2012"

There's a scene in Roland Emmerich's "2012" where earthquakes are ravaging the face of the planet, and holy men are praying in the Sistine Chapel when a crack grows in the dome, splitting God's outstretched fingers away from Adam's.

I suspect audiences, or at least critics, are going to be equally divided over this outsized disaster flick.

For me, it was a big, dumb, thoroughly fun movie. If you go into it looking for serious social allegory -- as Emmerich was trying to do with the global warming-themed "The Day After Tomorrow" -- then you're probably going to regard this new film as a travesty that treats human lives with as much dignity as blips on a video game.

But poking fun at this movie is inane, since it exists as a parody of itself -- or at least its genre.

"2012" is essentially a special-effects smorgasbord of nearly every disaster movie ever made: Earthquakes! Volcanic eruptions! Titanic-like drownings! Explosions that must be outrun! Tsunamis! Buildings collapsing! Plane crashes! Car crashes! Jumping over chasms in a limo! Jumping over chasms in a Winnebago! Meteors! Puppies in peril!

We get to see Los Angeles slide into the ocean, the White House wiped out (a habit for Emmerich), and Las Vegas collapse into the burning maw of hell (which is probably where it was headed anyway).

About the only thing missing is for a certain lizard, 1,000 feet tall and seriously P.O.'d, to poke his head out of the ocean.

John Cusack plays Jackson Curtis, a failed writer and divorced dad, who stumbles across the mother of all government conspiracies: The American president (Danny Glover) and other world leaders have known for years that the Earth is on the brink of destruction. It seems some neutrinos or something from the sun are warming the planet's core, which will eventually cause the continental plates to start slip-sliding around and slamming into each other.

Chiwetel Ejiofor plays the conscientious scientist advising the heads of state on how the human race is going to survive -- well, a small percentage of it, anyway. Oliver Platt is his bean-counting boss, only too happy to determine who gets to live and who must die. Of course, the ultra-rich are guaranteed a spot.

Jackson gathers up his clan, including ex-wife (Amanda Peet), estranged kids and even his competition, the smarmy stepdad (Thomas McCarthy). They must race through one ridiculous set of challenges after another (see Explosions! Eruptions! Drownings! etc.) to survive.

Plot? OK, here's the plot: Emmerich, who co-wrote the script with Harald Kloser, piles on huge computer-generated action sequences, then switches to a weepy humanist moment where somebody tries to reach their long-lost son/daughter/wife/colleague to whisper encouraging words, before the huge tidal waves and explosions roll in to snuff them out. Rinse and repeat.

I lost count of how many times a phone line went dead as the apocalyptic destruction overran somebody. Of course, one might wonder how the phones are still working when most of the planet's surface looks like it's been through a shredder.

But these sorts of ruminations are anathema to the pure cinematic roller-coaster ride that is "2012." The best of such rides have a sign saying you must be so tall in order to be allowed onboard. For this movie, the measurement is snobbishness: Those who insist on taking it seriously will be left behind.

3.5 stars