Watch Gringo if you want a light and easy gangsta comedy on an uneventful night. Otherwise this pulp action adventure doesn't pack enough punches to justify missing that office party or a long overdue family dinner.
Harold Soyinka (David Oyelowo), a trusty, hardworking pharma executive, a man who plays by the rules, suddenly finds himself embroiled in a situation in Mexico while on a business trip. Although he has been getting subtle hints all along, everything he had built for himself in the United States suddenly falls apart like a house of cards. Staring at an impending job loss at the hands of extremely grasping, soulless bosses Rusk (Joel Edgerton) and his associate (Charlize Theron), and a doddering marriage with a wife who now has a paramour, Soyinka has been neatly entrapped by his one-time friend Rusk.
Realising he has nothing to go back to in Chicago, Soyinka fakes his own kidnapping to extract whatever money and self-respect he can from Rusk but simply ends up hurtling from one tragi-comic situation to another, including a real kidnapping attempt by drug-dealing Mexican overlords. Soyinka is aided and impeded in this Mexican adventure by a striking bunch of characters, including Rusk's brother, an ex-mercenary, whose ostensible motive for tracking down Soyinka for Rusk is to help a Haitian NGO. Implausible, yes!
There are enough twists and churns in Gringo to keep the narrative racing forward like a breathless fugitive on the run, but they all coalesce into a mirthless business trip, which was hectic without being fulfilling. Charlize Theron is stunning and offensive and one-note with a very flattering hair-do, while back-stabbing Edgerton looks more helpless than Soyinka whose wife he once fat-shamed.
While Soyinka, in the garb of a law-abiding citizen, faithful husband and diligent worker, shows flashes of conniving behaviour and that is when his performance soars. Otherwise it is too hard to believe he can be fooled so many times in the course of the film. Also, the racist jibes don't quite hurt, they are so unsubtle. But again, it's always good to be in Mexico!
Film: Gringo
Director: Nash Edgerton
Cast: David Oyelowo, Charlize Theron, Joel Edgerton, Amanda Seyfried
Rating: 1.5/5