Richard Coca

Occupation

Actor

The Mexican Review

By Rob Blackwelder

Good

Brad Pitt plays a scatterbrained, indentured mob lackey on a do-or-die delivery assignment. Julia Roberts plays his neurotic, therapy-addicted girlfriend who made him promise he'd get out of the rackets. James Gandolfini is a hypersensitive crybaby hit man who kidnaps Julia to make sure Brad doesn't get any bright ideas about selling the antique pistol he's sent to fetch from south of the border.

This winning talent combo and a very droll, quite original script make "The Mexican" the first sublime cinematic bonbon of 2001 -- a consistently chuckle-packed caper comedy with charm and repartee to spare.

Directed by Gore Verbinski ("Mouse Hunt"), who effortlessly navigates several blindsiding but fine-tuned plot twists, "The Mexican" features Pitt as Jerry, a hapless, handsome perpetual screw-up who has been doing odd jobs for a mafioso to atone for causing a traffic accident -- an accident that inadvertently landed the kingpin in the clink (there was a body in his trunk at the time).

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