The Mexican

Brad Pitt gets sent to Mexico to retrieve a legendary (and supposedly cursed) handgun, as a final menial task to get himself off the hook with a mysterious Mr. Margoles (whose identity is revealed late in the movie and was a complete surprise to me), who is in prison because Pitt's an inattentive driver. He's already in dutch with his girlfriend (Julia Roberts), because the last job was supposed to be the last job, so she moves to Vegas without him.

Except they sent a guy who doesn't speak Spanish to a predominantly Spanish-speaking country, and he keeps losing the pistol and getting back. Meanwhile, Julia Roberts is saved from one gunman taking hostage by another gunman who takes her hostage, played by James Gandolfini. And they end up talking a lot about relationships while Pitt's running around Mexico in a beat to shit pick-up with a very surly dog in the back, trying to get this gun and get home.

I'd been meaning to watch this for a while, and unlike Stranger Than Fiction, it didn't let me down. I had a good feeling a couple of minutes in, when Roberts and Pitt are having an argument as she throws his stuff at him from the balcony and he points if he doesn't go on this job, he gets killed, so really, if anyone is being selfish. . . She fires back, 'Blame-shifting?! You're blame-shifting?!'

It's weird, because Roberts' character has this strong vibe I'd describe as "Joe Pesci in Lethal Weapon 2." Where she gets ramped up and goes on these impassioned spiels that remind me of Pesci screaming about how 'they fuck you with the drive-thru.' (Which is probably my favorite line in all the Lethal Weapon movies.)

It feels a little like a Coen Brothers movie at times, except Pitt's character is more unlucky than stupid or incompetent. Plus it gradually becomes clear there are forces farther up the organizational ladder working at cross-purposes, and that's left him caught in the middle. 

The end is a little strange, not so much for itself, but the fact the movie feels like it reaches the climax 30 minutes earlier, but then you get some more exposition and then the movie tries to ramp up for one more climax, which doesn't really work because no one is going to take the character in question seriously as a threat. I mean, it wraps things up in a little neater bow than was really required, but I also wasn't as interested in the tortured, multiple choice origin of the gun, which factors in.

The shaky ending doesn't ruin the film by any means, though.