Gringo is a 2018 action comedy film directed by Nash Edgerton and written by Anthony Tambakis and Matthew Stone. It stars David Oyelowo, Joel Edgerton, Amanda Seyfried, Charlize Theron, Thandie Newton, Yul Vazquez and Sharlto Copley.
The film explores the battle of survival for businessman Harold Soyinka (Oyelowo) when he finds himself crossing the line from law-abiding citizen to wanted criminal.
It is scheduled to be released on March 9, 2018, by Amazon Studios and STX International.
Gringo provides examples of:
- Action Survivor: Harold is just a businessman with no training combat whatsoever and finds himself forced to survive amidst chases and shootouts.
- Aside Glance: The final shot of the movie is Harold turning to the camera and smiling.
- Contrived Coincidence: Not only does Miles arrive in Mexico to steal a sample of Promethium's product at the same time Harold travels down there, he and Sunny keep running into the guy wherever they go.
- Berserk Button: Villegas has very strong opinions about The Beatles. So strong that he will shoot you in the face if you insult them or say that Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band was their best album.
- The Cartel: Harold's business trip to Mexico goes awry, and not least because drug cartels are involved.
- Even Evil Has Standards: Elaine might be a callous, unscrupulous bitch, but she is appalled when Richard suggests leaving Harold to die in Mexico.
- Formerly Fat: Bonnie, Harold’s wife. She regains weight at the end when she’s left alone.
- Gambit Pileup: This movie is effectively one long gambit pileup, as various individual characters' plans intersect, collide, and modify each other.
- Richard's plan to sell the business to another pharmaceutical company.
- Richard and Elaine's plan to cut off the cartels so as not to endanger the merger.
- The cartel head's plan to kidnap Harold so he can open the drug lab's vault.
- A store clerk hired by a rival pharmaceutical company to try to steal some of that drug.
- Harold's plan to fake his own kidnapping for a $5 million ransom.
- The kids who run the hotel plan to turn Harold over to that drug lord.
- Richard's ex-mercenary-turned-aid-worker brother first plans to rescue Harold for a reward, then changes his plan to going in with Harold to con Richard out of the ransom, then changes it to killing Harold to help Richard collect on his life insurance.
- The cartel head's right-hand man is actually a deep-cover DEA agent with his own agenda.
- I Take Offense to That Last One: Elaine mentions that, in high school, there was a rumor that she'd had sex with the entire Lacrosse team in a Dairy Queen parking long. Years later, she's still incensed that anyone would think she'd be caught dead in a Dairy Queen.
- Karma Houdini: Pretty much everyone who wronged Harold over the course of the movie gets comeuppance except for Elaine, who shifts the blame to Richard and even goes on to be hosted on talk shows to tell Harold's story.
- Locked Out of the Loop: Sunny has no clue about the real reason she and Miles are in Mexico.
- Never Trust a Title: The titular "Gringo" protagonist isn't the white American that pejorative usually describes, but a black immigrant from Nigeria.
- Pragmatic Villainy: Villegas claims that he will let Harold go after he opens the vault because killing Americans attracts far more attention than it is worth.
- Understatement: "We sold our little product to the cartels. But when we cut them off, they got a little angry..."
- Red Baron: The drug-lord Villegas is better known throughout Mexico as El Pantera Negra (the Black Panther).
- Unwitting Instigator of Doom: Harold's accountant. If he hadn't told Harold about the merger, Harold would have returned with Richard and Elaine from Mexico and the movie would've ended after the first act.
