Gringo

With blockbuster cinema now fully owned by brand names like Marvel and Star Wars, you can add grungy crime films to the list of genres ceded to the independents. Nash Edgerton’s darkly wacky Gringo is the sort of proudly profane, twist-filled story of amateur criminals and sensitive hit men that came out every other week in the 1990s, and while no new ground gets broken here, the film has enough energy and nerve to carry you through the underwhelming end. David Oyelowo heads a strong ensemble cast as Harold Soyinka, a born loser with a cheating wife and a tenuous job at a pharmaceuticals company. When Harold learns that his boss Richard (Nash’s brother Joel Edgerton) has set him up as the fall guy in a Mexican drug-running scheme, he fakes his own kidnapping and demands ransom, but the plan gets upended by a largely rote series of double-crosses and misunderstandings.