Such a frustrating disappointment

There's a good chance the film will make you laugh out loud, but if it doesn't, there's an even better chance it will make you openly sob.

Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

I very much dislike it when entertainers retire long before it is necessary to do so, leaving their fans high and dry (such as Cary Grant). But some entertainers don't quite know when to call it quits (like Sinatra, Como, and Martin). I regret to say it, because I always admired him, but this was one film too many for Gregory Peck. At 73, Peck had gotten too old for a starring role such as this.But that's not the only problem with this film. It's somewhat depressing and, at times, a bit confusing in terms of plot. At least that's how I interpret the film's incredible flop at the box office (it earned $3.5 million, but cost $27 million).About the best thing that I can say about the film is that it is beautifully filmed. The fighting scenes are done very well. The sets are sumptuous.Now there is a plot here -- actually 3 plots. A young woman (Jane Fonda) wants to experience life (although why she would place herself in the middle of the Mexican Revolution is unclear). An old man (Gregory Peck) -- a writer -- is ready to die. And a young Mexican (Jimmy Smits) wants to lead his countrymen to their rightful place in a free Mexico. And the story comes together as all 3 main characters find themselves together in the middle of the Revolution.Jane Fonda, who gets top billing here, is fine in some scenes, but just a little too wide-eyed in other scenes. At least she gets to kiss Gregory Peck and have sex with Jimmy Smits. She has come of age, so to speak.Jimmy Smits probably does the best acting in the film. He's very believable as a local leader of the Revolution.The film lasts just under an hour, but seems much longer. You'll have to decide for yourself. For me, I won't want to watch it again.

The main reason to watch this film is the absolutely mesmerizing performance of Gregory Peck. Aged 73 at the time of filming, his deep voice resonates and rumbles out of the screen magnificently, punctuated with heavy breathing, completely dominating the screen whenever he speaks. There is a scene in which he woos Jane Fonda as they sit on a log; it is hard to imagine any woman not falling for the aging Peck as his words pour forth to her like poetry. This is the voice I imagine God speaks with.Peck's character is world-weary, and he engages everyone around him with detachment and some irony; except, watch for the scene towards the end in which he takes General Arroyo's black horse out for a ride in the country. The pure joy on Peck's face is delightful, genuine and pleasing to see.And speaking of the horse: one of the most spectacular and shocking animal moments in screen history has to be the shot of General Arroyo shooting his horse in the head, near the end of the film. The timing of the sprawling horse is flawless, the effect electrifying.Jimmy Smits is excellent as General Arroyo, and it is interesting how the general becomes more sympathetic as the movie moves along.Sadly, though, the parts don't come together to make a great whole. Yes, "Old Gringo" is beautifully filmed, but it goes on for too long, and furthermore, it is tiring to have to work out, through the first half-hour, who is fighting for which side, and who are the Mirandas.Worst of all is the presence of Jane Fonda. She's not bad, but look: if you want to look skinny, hang around fat people. If you don't want people to notice that your acting is wooden and uninspiring, don't appear in a movie with Gregory Peck. I think an actress like Kate Capshaw (who plays a similar character in the 1987 TV-movie version of "The Quick and the Dead") would have played Ms. Winslow much more appealingly.A final question: is Peck already dead when he is "executed" at the movie's end? His eyes are first looking at Arroyo, then moments later facing forward at the executioners. Hard to say."Old Gringo" is worth watching to see Gregory Peck still eat up the screen in this, the winter of his career; but have the fast-forward ready.

At one level, this film focuses on a much delayed coming of age adventure for Jane Fonda's character, Harriet Winslow, who suddenly decides she has had enough of her mother-dominated spinster school marm life. Yes, we would expect her to be maybe 10-20 years younger than her 50 years, and some have suggested she was thus miscast. However, her relatively advanced age makes her crush on Peck's 70 year old character, Ambrose Bierce, more believable. Peck's characterization of Bierce is somewhat at odds with what I have read of this man. We get the impression that, like Harriet, he has decided to forsake his bookish life, as a sick old man, for a final hands-on adventure, as an aid to the rebels in the Mexican revolution. However, the real Bierce fought in the Civil War and later crossed the continent on another assignment. He was not a one-dimensional bookish writer, by experience.Fonda simultaneously develops a crush on both Bierce and General Arroyo(Jimmy Smits). They are both seen as romantic rebels, though of very different sorts and for different personal reasons. Harriet reminds Bierce of his daughter, whom he hasn't seen for many years, while Bierce reminds Harriet of her father, who abandoned his domineering wife for a new love, and who fought in the Spanish American war to help free Cuba. But after partially destroying the Miranda mansion where he was conceived, Arroyo delays taking his troops to join Villa's, as ordered. Arroyo's bedding of Harriet on the very bed where he was conceived symbolically reverses the power relationship in which his European father raped his native American mother. He finds the original Spanish land grant papers giving the land of this hacienda to the peasants. Since Spain no longer governed Mexico, these papers were not necessarily valid, as Pierce points out, but Arroyo refuses to heed. Arroyo's shooting of his favorite horse and of Bierce reinforces his determination to stay at the hacienda of his birth instead of joining Villa.There are several references accusing Arroyo of having become the new Miranda, and thus betraying the revolution. I don't understand why Arroyo had one of his soldiers shot for doing what he himself was doing. He must have known he would receive the same sentence if he did not soon join Villa's forces. Perhaps this symbolized the near universal tendency of revolutionary leaders to gradually become tyrants as bad or worse than those they topple. So it had been with Porfirio Diaz, the once revolutionary general the revolutionists now fought against. So it would be with various successors to Diaz during these turbulent times.This is an entertaining film, for the most part. There are enough action scenes to complement the philosophizing and other tamer scenes. You will have to pay close attention or see it several times to dig out all the symbolism. I can see why this film was important to Jane Fonda. It is, in a sense, autobiographical, symbolizing her mid-life transformation from an apolitical sex kitten into an anti-establishment political spokeswoman for the powerless of the world.

The director, Luis Puenzo, crafted an extraordinary vision of the drama that confronts players when they decide to make revolution. Puenzo took us behind the scenes of a sweeping political struggle and made the viewer examine the personal details and the personal confrontations of the actors as they tred the stage of events that were much bigger than themselves.I know, I know-all of this has been done before; it's formula scrip work but the brilliance of the cast and the direction make Old Gringo into a movie that you will return to over and over again like a favourite old wine or a dish that you never tire of eating.The principal cast of Fonda, Smits and Peck enliven an already sumptuous tapestry woven by Puenzo. The film is visually rich and the eye is as entranced by the beauty of the scenes as much as the mind is satisfied with the meat of the story.People owe it to themselves to see such a rich film.