If there were a special place for middling cultural products—the so-so pop song, the not-entirely-bad book—that would be the proper destination for a movie like Gringo. There’s nothing really dislikable about the picture, but that’s partly because there’s not really much to it. You’d expect any movie featuring Charlize Theron and David Oyelowo to have at least a few redeeming moments, and this one does—but it remains irredeemably so-so.
Oyelowo (Selma, Interstellar) isn’t an actor ordinarily associated with comedy, but he should really do more of it—he’s slyly funny here, playing a guileless Chicago pharma exec named Harold Soyinka, whose world is about to blow up in his face. Harold is a Nigerian immigrant with an all-American work ethic, a loving wife (Thandie Newton), and a childlike faith in his boss, Richard Rusk (Joel Edgerton). Unfortunately, Richard is a complete scumbucket, and thus a perfect match for his business partner, Elaine Markinson (Theron), an ice-bitch sex terrorist (she fondly reminisces about having once “pulled a train” with the entire lacrosse team in a Dairy Queen parking lot), writes Kurt Loder.
from Hit & Run http://ift.tt/2GaSwF5
via IFTTT