This starts marvellously, with a fun sequence of Mel Gibson in a clown suit fleeing cops with a dying partner, trying to race to the Mexico border, and some funny narration. And at first things are promising - Mexican cops steal his money and Mel winds up in an eccentric prison where you can live the high life if you have contacts but if you don't it's not going to be fun.
Unfortunately as the movie goes on it gets less and less interesting. Mel's character remains sketchy, his story uncompelling; what should be about getting the money and getting out of gaol becomes more about helping a little ten year old kid not have his liver cut out (it's like there are two narratives operating side by side); excellent Mexican actors are given types to play rather than characters; the world of the prison is interesting enough, but then the last third is mostly set outside it back in America; and some scenes just felt plain unrealistic, such as the shoot out with three American gun men.
It's not that funny and there's some unexciting bang bang at the finale, where Mel is a super hero, plus some yucky gore in the form of liver transplants and torture, and a confusing epilogue. I get where they were trying to go with this - it's a sort of Out of Sight vibe - but they didn't have Elmore Leonard. Mel is in good haggard form, I just wish the movie had been better written and directed.
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