Gringo viejo

Gregory Peck's over the top performance and Jimmy Smits in over his head do not however destroy a good story. Jane Fonda truly loved this story but even she looks lost in the pages told. But just imagine the last days of Bitter as recounted here. Just picture the upheaval and pain so universally shared by any people in the throes of hell and in the midst, yeah corny, but in the midst of that pain, the universal tale of hope and love. Sacrifice for something bigger than yourself. A story teller must always moralize. Worth the watch. All romantics welcomed. (PS Note to director: There are light skin Mexicans (not me but others) - no need for the garish make-up - ugh.)

The idea for this film isn't bad. Back in 1913, a sickly and aging writer (Ambrose Bierce) decided to go to one of the most exciting and dangerous places on the planet--Mexico during the revolution that followed the ouster of the dictator, Porfirio Diaz. While no one knows for sure why he chose to do this, the film's contention that he was suicidal and wanted to "go out with a bang" seems quite reasonable. However, exactly what happened to the man is a total mystery--and to this day no one knows exactly what happened to him. Contact with his simply stopped! This film seems to create a fictionalized idea of what COULD have happened to Bierce (played by Gregory Peck). However, the film did so by creating a fictionalized character of an American teacher (Jane Fonda) who gets tricked into walking into the midst of the fighting--and, naturally, slowly is won over to the side of the soldiers of Pancho Villa--though Villa himself does not appear in the film until the end. In the meantime, Fonda and Peck meet with and spend time with General Aroyo (I have no idea if he was a real person or fictionalized--I assume he was fictionalized since I found nothing on him on the internet). Aroyo is played by Jimmy Smits.

So what did I think of this film? Well, on one hand it was a lovely film. The music and cinematography worked together to make a film that was quite pleasing to the senses. The slow pacing and evocative spirit was quite nice. Plus, the three leads are all very good actors and you have to respect their talents. However, despite these factors, the film also had a lot of problems--too many to make it worth seeking out yourself. While it looked good, the film was, after a while, incredibly boring. The plot just seemed to stagnate after a while and seemed to go no where--like they never really worked out the plot completely. And, the most serious problem is that it's hard to like or relate to the characters. Just when you start to connect with them, they behave in ways that make you either hate them or wonder what the @%## motivates them. It's rare to see a movie that has characters that are more ill-defined--and excellent acting can't make up for that.

There is one final problem with the film, though most who watch it won't realize it. As a history teacher, I was well acquainted with the Mexican revolution. The various factions, frankly, were all pretty screwed up! While there were things to admire about Pancho Villa and his faction, he was also a blood-thirsty bandit as well as reformer--provided HE was the one doing all the reforms. As for the alternatives, they weren't any better. The ideas of land reform and democracy were wonderful--too bad no one leading any of the factions really did anything to actually improve the lot for the average Mexican! A lot of people died, but essentially the country wasn't much better off when all was said and done. So, in a war when there are no clear "good guys", who do you care about in this film?!

As for Miss Fonda and Mr. Peck, they both have been long-time leftists--and very pro-revolution. I strongly suspect that this is why they made this film. I am all in favor of revolution when it means getting rid of evil, but like the Beatles song "Revolution", such movements need to have more to them than just a desire to change things. I wish in hindsight they'd chosen a more productive and life-changing revolution to dramatize--such as the "Velvet Revolution" Czechsolovakia or the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. Just my two cents worth.

Mexico in the teen years of the last century was no place to be, not even for Mexicans as the country broke down completely after the overthrow of dictator Porfirio Diaz. A lot of people grabbed for power, including one Pancho Villa who got emboldened enough to cross the U.S. border and shoot up Columbus, New Mexico. That got Woodrow Wilson to sending the army to capture Villa without success.

But that's getting way ahead of this story. It concerns American writer Ambrose Bierce who went to revolutionary Mexico and disappeared into obscurity much in the manner of the French poet Francois Villon. The plot of this film offers a theory as to what could have happened to Bierce.

Dominating the film is Gregory Peck in the title role. He captures Bierce in all of his sardonic cynicism for which his writing lives on. This Bierce has all the reason to just want to leave his world behind, his wife had recently died, but not after being discovered to be involved with another man. Two of his three children, both of his sons died violent deaths. Bierce was a man who felt he had no reason to live on.

Peck gets involved with two other people in a romantic triangle, Jane Fonda as a spinster who gets hired to tutor some landowner children and Jimmy Smits who's using the revolution to settle some personal scores with that same landowner family. In fact Smits gets himself rather caught up in the whole ambiance of being to the manor born with what he feels are good reasons.

All though all three of the leads have been in much better product, Old Gringo still is a good piece of cinema and does capture some of the anarchy that was revolutionary Mexico.

Old Gringo is perhaps not as bad as has been made out by other reviewers, but it is not without its problems. The basic plot (generic war movie) is sufficient, but casting three headliners and trying to make sure they all get their stories and screen time in hollows out all three characters. All three characters were actually worthy of being portrayed as the lead, but it seems that none of the trio actually was. The movie would actually have been better with slightly lesser actors in two of the roles and more emphasis on just one of them.

I'm sure being a "Fonda Film" there was some thinly veiled commentary about something or another, but I either didn't catch it or didn't care enough to pay attention. I'd say it's an OK watch if you can find it for free, but maybe not worth paying for.

In 1913, Harriet Winslow (Jane Fonda) is hired by a Mexican family as a governess, but she then is kidnapped by Gen Tomas Arroyo (Jimmy Smits) and along with other revolutionaries. She also meets Ambrose Bierce (Gregory Peck), who conceals his true identity and who is ready to die on this foreign land. The three of them form a love triangle, Harriet becomes Tomas's lover and her affection towards Bierce is rather like a daughter to a father. But when Tomas invades the house of Miranda, where his birth father, the master, rapes his mother and where his shoots Mr Miranda dead when he is seventeen, he becomes so haunted by his past and obsessed with the old papers. As he befriends Bierce, he also turns into a ruthless commander. In the end, things get tragic- Harriet is determined to fulfill Bierce' dying wish of not being publicised and Tomas has to face his ultimate punishment. Harriet now is the sole survivor who remembers her two beloved men. 'He said I would forget. But how could I not remember?'

I really like this film. Jimmy Smits is excellent as the tormented general and Gregory Peck was marvellous as the disillusioned writer and journalist. Jane Fonda is not too bad. The direction is okay, the story is very poignant and twisted. All in all, a nicely done drama.