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Year:	2012
Country of origin:	USA
Director:	Adrian Grunberg
Genre:	Generic action thrills
Starring:	Mel Gibson, Peter Stormare
Rating:	4/5
IMDB link:	http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1567609/
Tagline:	The odds are against him. So is everyone else.
Favourite line:	"And stop bleeding on my money."

Entitled Get the Gringo in America, Gibson’s back in Mad Mel mode.

The plot:
The unnamed ‘driver’ is in a spot of bother. He and his accomplice have just escaped from a robbery, the police hot on their tails. Approaching the US / Mexico border, the accomplice is shot, dead, but the Driver has no intention of falling into the hands of the American authorities, so smashes through the border, crashing on Mexican soil.
The police steal his money, all four million dollars of it, and throw him into El Pueblito, a prison ostensibly, but run more as a small town where anything is available for the right price, the only thing you can’t buy is freedom.
Alone, in a world unfamiliar, Driver must put his conniving, thieving ways to use if he has any hope of surviving.

Yep, Gibson has chosen to continue the rehabilitation of his public image with, appropriately enough, a prison movie.
Kick-starting with a pulse-pounding action sequence, accompanied by freeze frames and a dry as sticks voice-over from Gibson, a statement of intent is declared.
Witty throughout, the wit very much of the sardonic variety, so if slapstick and prat-falling is your idea of humour, this will surely disappoint. But, if that’s true, you deserve to be disappointed.
Constantly.
In everything that you do.
Until you die.
Horribly.
Mel struts around the place like a thing possessed, a demonic glint in his eye, clearly enjoying himself enormously and, truth be told, this is his best performance since Lethal Weapon 2, way back when.
The world of the prison is realised effectively and, whilst on occasion it does stretch credulity, still it is a fascinating environment, a world within a world within a world, a microcosm of society, in all its faults and triumphs.
A point of discussion surely must be the title change for the European market. This is becoming an increasingly familiar phenomena.
Avengers Assemble.
John Carter.
Now this.
What is it about? Do they think that we won’t understand? Will the word gringo be, what, too confusing? Too offensive? I don’t get it. And if that were the case, why would anyone wish to go see a movie where the racial epithet is bandied around almost as frequently as ‘nigger’ in a Tarantino movie. Are the studios trying to trick us into going to see something we may not actually like, not caring about the reaction once the money has changed hands?
Surely not!
Still, on a personal level, the liberal sprinkling of gringo throughout only served to add to the entertainment. I think it may be my favourite word of all the ones I know. And I know at least sixty three.
Not going to change the world, this, not going to stay long in the memory but, whilst it was playing, it was never anything less than very entertaining.
And, besides, it’s good to see the misogynistic, anti-Semitic, racist old homophobe back doing what he does best. Isn’t it?