Gibson co-wrote Get The Gringo with Stacy Perskie and first-time director Adrian Grunberg. Grunberg was Gibson’s first assistant director on Apocalypto. Together they’ve hatched a strange film where the prison is as much of an integral character as Mel is. El Pueblito was a real place, built in 1956 and closed down in a dawn raid in 2002.
Mel Gibson’s new movie begins with two blokes in clown suits speeding towards the Mexican border with the cops in hot pursuit. One of the clowns has been shot in the belly and is coughing up blood over the money they’ve stolen.
The scene sets the tone for the film to follow: a dark and bloody action thriller dressed up like a comedy.
Mel’s unnamed hero makes it across the border and is apprehended by Mexican cops, who pocket the cash. Mel (let’s just call him Mel) finds himself held without charge inside notorious Tijuana prison El Pueblito. Corrupt to the core, El Pueblito is a slum city complete with shops and restaurants, where drugs are openly available and inmates’ families are allowed to live with them.
Mel knows how to survive in this kind of environment: dishonestly. He sets about stealing money from other prisoners and befriends a nicotine-addicted kid, called The Kid (Kevin Hernandez), who has a vendetta against the man who killed his father: El Pueblito’s alpha crime lord, Javi (Daniel Gimenez Cacho).
Gibson co-wrote Get The Gringo with Stacy Perskie and first-time director Adrian Grunberg. Grunberg was Gibson’s first assistant director on Apocalypto. Together they’ve hatched a strange film where the prison is as much of an integral character as Mel is. El Pueblito was a real place, built in 1956 and closed down in a dawn raid in 2002.
Mel manages to bring plenty of movie-star charisma to his killer role.
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