pseudonimo I do not understand why this movie was released direct to video when it came across as such a path breaking film? The plot was great, photography superb, acting was splendid. What was absolutely great about the film?- Its background score. Massive, Lovable. I could watch the movie a number of times. Its so good. I wish it had a great release. It would have done superb. Seeing this so great, I often wonder if Mel Gibson had just directed it, and it had either Sylvester Stallone, Al Pacino or Robert De niro playing the part. It would have been legendary. Nevertheless this movie is worth the time and just perfect enough to watch.

MovieSoup This movie is not great. Unfortunately Mel Gibson has been in some very poor quality films and this is certainly one of them. The plot of this movie is dull, the characters are dull, the music is garbage and the editing is so poor that it actually gave me a headache.To start with the movie opens with a dog taking a wizz in a field followed by a man in a horse drawn cart. Then it cuts to a car chase with Gibson in the car wearing a clown suit (which is never explained)??? Why did we need those two first scenes? Why could it not start with the car chase in it? These sorts of scenes make it really confusing to watch the film because you sit there and ask "why were these scenes put in?" The car chase itself didn't make any sense as Mel crashes through a metal fence and he is in Mexico. I have actually seen the border between Mexico and the USA and trust me it is a lot more tightly controlled than a metal fence with a convenient ramp placed half way across it so you can do really cool car jumps through it. Sorry to go on so much about the opening scene but it really is that stupid and makes no sense at all.The overall plot is stupid and difficult to enjoy due to the pacing and editing that was used. The editing in this movie is all over the place with scenes being glued together with lots of cut scenes of babies crying, Mexicans making fajitas and dogs barking. Bad editing leads to the film not being structured in a seamless way and you really tell with movies like this. Stupid plot points ruin this story as well. If the prison town is so secure and even the big crime boss who owns the police can't escape then why can school girls walk right through this town? Also the fact that they let kids and civilians in and out of the prison to get around is inherently dangerous. Surely one of them would be held hostage, murdered or raped.The characters are dull and have no development to them. Gibson plays just an older more depressing version of Riggs from Lethal weapon and has no real report with both the kid his mother who he later fancies for no reason other than she is there. The kid is not a great child star but does okay and some of his scenes are passable with real emotion in them.The mother is the worst character by far. She is just there to be tortured and act scared the whole time and she can't even do that right. She fake cries a lot which is just terribly distracting and brings the tone of the scene down. Her "romantic" scene with Gibson at the end when he asks "can I bite you?" and she says "maybe" is terrible, creepy, flat and not convincing at all. Their whole relationship and the back and forth they are supposed to have is utterly non-existent and is just bad character development on the scripts part. This movie is directed by a guy (Adrian Gruberg) with only two directing credits to his name, this being the first film he has directed. Every director has to start somewhere however his inexperience is what leads to this film being poorly shot with terrible camera work, cinematography and bad direction of characters on camera. The CG blood in this film is awful and you can tell it is not used to the right effect. I have no problem with CG blood when it is done well, like in the film Zodiac however in this you can really tell it is CG. The worst thing is that in some cases actual blood packs would have worked way better and added a nice practical effect to the stilted action scenes. In this film they seem to have got a hold of what Americans think typical Mexican music is and just put it haphazardly and ineffectively into this film. The music in this is so bad that it actually pains me to say that even I could do a better film score and I'm an idiot. For me music makes a film better and when you just put generic Spanish/Mexican music in a film just because it is set in Mexico the music adds no feel to a film. From Dusk till Dawn uses music very well and that is set in Mexico, so why couldn't this film do that?The only thing I loved about this film was its short running time and I would not really recommend this movie to anyone interested in film. If you want a dumb story with glaring plot holes and lots of meaningless violence please watch this.

Guy GET THE GRINGO (aka WHAT I DID ON MY SUMMER VACATION) is classic Mel Gibson. He's a battered old bank robber - just like in PAYBACK - who stumbles across the border into Mexico with a couple of million and a dead partner. The Mex cops nick his cash, to spend on hookers and German cars, whilst throwing him into the slammer. Based on a real life experiment (which inevitably ended badly), the prison is sorta-open; with the criminals carrying guns, dealing drugs and even living with their families inside. The only rule is that escape means death. Mel gives the place plenty of sarcastic voice-over, all whilst casing the joint, making friends with a cigarette-crazy kid and even romancing the boy's mother. Soon he's climbing the criminal ladder, even as the people whose money he stole come looking for him. Cue some satisfyingly Peckinpah-esque blood'n'slo-mo shootouts, as well as a slightly random digression from the prison. It's gory, foul-mouthed and cynical...but somehow still has its heart in the right place as Mel finds redemption (he is Catholic after all) and settles scores. A taut 90 minutes long, this old-school thriller ought to have re- established his career after his drunken ZOG-ranting but alas...

Adam Peters (57%) Gibson goes back to basics in this grimy Mexican set action prison drama. Those out there looking for bullet-ridden action set pieces on a treadmill set to 10 with one after another will find this maybe a bit lacking, as this is a movie that, like Mel's character, wants to use its brains a degree more than its brawn, with much focus on plot, setting, and character. After all that's said and done Mel Gibson is still a strong lead, and the movie is at least somewhat different from the typical action flicks out there making this a decent addition to Mel's back catalogue, even if it is pretty standard stuff in terms of entertainment.