Gore Verbinski’s The Mexican is billed variously as an adventure, action, comedy, and crime movie. All of those categorisations are accurate – along with a little romanticism, to boot – but, in its entirety, the film is a carefully woven musing on the theme of appropriation. This theme is present in almost every one of its multiple plot threads, and helps to define the arc of every major character - which may seem surprising, given that Verbinski later directed 2013’s The Lone Ranger, with Johnny Depp cast in the role of Tonto. The Mexican, though, as only his second feature length outing, shows an early promise of a director at uncommon ease with themes of soc...

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