Cast: David Oyelowo, Charlize Theron, Joel Edgerton, Amanda Seyfried, Thandie Newton, Sharlto Copley

Direction: Nash Edgerton

Producer: Rebecca Yeldham, Nash Edgerton, Charlize Theron, Beth Kono, A. J. Dix, Anthony Tambakis

Writer: Matthew Stone

Genre: Crime Comedy

Duration:110 Mins

Gringo is a term used by the Latinos for a person from an English-speaking country! Well on the other hand the movie is about an American-black business executive who learns in the course of time that pharmacy brothers aren’t to be trusted. And the story ends up in Mexico with drug cartels, drug lords and kidnapping. Which literally means that he becomes the victim of the Kidnapping Plague – in Mexico!

David Oyelowo plays Harold Soyinka, who is working in his college friend’s pharmaceutical company, which is owned by Richard Rusk (Joel Edgerton) with his co-worker/lover Elaine Markinson (Charlize Theron). They are planning a big merger with a big drug maker, which has high possibility of having Harold out of the job. But they just play it cool by taking Richard for a meeting along with them. Making sure that David has no clue of what he’s been taken to Mexico for, which he ultimately finds out! Ideally it was no necessity to have Harold along on the trip! But then there was a kidnapping plot, without which the movie wouldn’t be. Because Americans are too much trouble for them!

Richard and Elaine’s company develops a marijuana pill called Cannabax, which is produced for the so called medicinal us and the company has been selling a lot of stuff off-the-book racket to the Mexican drug lord. About which Harold had no indication. Surprising thing is that why would one person who has unlimited supply of pure weed will want to peddle their pills. Still wondering? But Villegas (Carlos Corona) also known as the Black Panther (Not King T’Challa) in Mexico wants the formula of their pill. But, is mistaken about one thing! He thinks that Harold is the one who can get him the formula!

Complications follow Harold’s way wherever he goes! Once he finds out about Richard’s plans about screwing up his career, Harold leaves the hotel he is staying in and stages his own kidnapping, thinking that Richard will fork over a ransom and he can keep it and flee away! But only if he knew that, all will come to pass soon.

The movie’s actual action gets a lift, when Richard calls his brother (Sharlto Copley), a former mercenary who’s into an impression that he can retrieve Harold without costing him a definite bundle. He didn’t have a lot to play around in the movie but the sequences built around him bought seldom surprise laughs!

David Oyelowo keeps Harold’s character of desperate plead for his life, from looking a racial caricature. Amanda Seyfried on the other hand was positive! However, in the end Harold is dead and Harry is born (spoiler alert). Gringo was much longer than what it felt like, more than 1 hour 50 min! It felt draggy sometimes and an overstuffed affair, which by the end of the day the plot only relied on the amazing cast who could have been utilized in so much more up to their potential!