The Mexican
| The Mexican | |
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Theatrical release poster
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| Directed by | Gore Verbinski |
| Produced by | Christopher Ball John Baldecchi Lawrence Bender |
| Written by | J.H. Wyman |
| Starring |
Julia Roberts Brad Pitt James Gandolfini J. K. Simmons |
| Music by | Alan Silvestri |
| Cinematography | Darius Wolski |
| Edited by | Craig Wood |
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Production
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| Distributed by | DreamWorks Pictures |
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Release date
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Running time
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123 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $57 million |
| Box office | $147.8 million |
The Mexican is a 2001 American comedy film directed by Gore Verbinski and starring Brad Pitt and Julia Roberts, with a plot that is a mixture of romantic comedy, adventure and road movie.
The story follows Jerry Welbach as he travels through Mexico to find a valuable antique gun, The Mexican, and smuggle it into the United States. Five years earlier, Welbach had caused a traffic accident in which he hit the car of local mobster Arnold Margolese, who was jailed for five years after the police searched his car following the crash, finding someone tied up in his trunk. In compensation for the jail time, Welbach has been sent on various errands by Margolese's prickly second-in-command, Bernie Nayman. Retrieving the gun will be his final errand. Welbach has a girlfriend, Samantha, with whom he argues constantly and who leaves Jerry prior to the trip over his lack of commitment to their relationship.
Jerry arrives in Mexico and makes his way to pick up Beck, the Margolese employee now in possession of the gun. There, a drunken Beck tells Jerry about the gun's history as a suicide weapon used as part of a jilted love-triangle between a woman, a nobleman, and the son of the gunsmith who forged the weapon, as well as its curse to misfire. Jerry helps Beck to his car, only for the man to be killed by celebratory gunfire from a nearby festival.
Panicked but determined, Jerry buries the body and then calls Bernie to report on the situation, only for his vehicle to be stolen while he makes the call, the gun still inside. Jerry briefly has an uncooperative donkey as transportation to follow the thief, then buys an old, damaged truck.
Meanwhile, Samantha gets kidnapped by a hit man named Leroy, who tells her that Jerry hired him to make sure she is safe from anybody that wants her dead. It is then revealed that Leroy is gay, which doesn't bother Samantha. They pick up a postal worker named Frank, who then has a relationship with Leroy.
Another hitman follows them to Las Vegas and kills Frank to make it look like a suicide. Leroy kills him in an act of vengeance, and flees with Samantha. Jerry finds out that Ted, his friend and colleague, wanted to kill him and take the pistol to Margolese, but hesitated and ends up getting handcuffed to a pawnshop owner, after he received the gun from a policeman when Jerry was being interrogated for the bloodstain on the front passenger seat of his car. Jerry then finds out he accidentally grabbed Ted's Passport and tries to retrieve his own, but Ted has already fled. Jerry decides to pick up Samantha and Leroy at the airport, where Leroy recognizes him, but Jerry doesn't recognize Leroy. Without a passport, Jerry is stuck in Mexico until further notice by the American Consulate.
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Wikipedia