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On-screen relationships in movies are a real hit and miss affair.  Of recent times, the two actor-relations I think most people would be likely to blurt out are Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan.  aaah, the perfect screen couple.
Then, with The Mexican, you've got yourself Brad and Julia. On paper you'd probably think...."yeah I can see that..they're both good looking, well known and well loved my movie audiences".  But I have to say, they have the on-screen chemistry of a brother and sister!  Seriously!  After watching this film (which I loved btw) I could really only see these 2 on screen again together as a terrific brother and sister team (I know I'd love to have Julia...as my sister....um, Eric...would you be interested in a swap 'ol pal???...PLEASE!!..I'LL PAY YOU!!!!!  :)))
Given the premise of the film, (and please note this is only MY opinion), I think the film only really worked because it's two lovebirds,  Julia and Brad are separated from each other for 90% of the film..which meant any lovey-dovey relations where kept to a bare minimum.

So the deal is, Jerry (Brad) heads to Mexico to buy a valuable pistol, the Mexican of the film, and Sam (Julia), heads to Las Vegas on her lonesome.  They were both suppose to go to Vegas to live now that Jerry was out of the nasty racket, but got roped back in due to him botching up his last job. 

As Sam makes her way to Vegas she is kidnapped by a hitman, Leroy (James G). This is as insurance to make certain that Jerry gets the pistol and doesn't screw it up.

To the Surprise of many, The Mexican was not quite you'd expect from the looks of the trailer.  While there were many comedic moments it's a hybrid of road movie and comedy caper, with quite a dark sense of humour.  The humour really is quite offbeat and frankly, somewhat atypical of American movie humour.  It was these difference that I loved about this film and is the style of humour that grows on you with time, and repeated viewings. 

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VIDEO
The Mexican Sports a killer Anamorphic Widescreen Transfer. 
Much like a Steven Soderbergh film (Traffic)where different locations are shot with a different look and feel, The Mexican trends along the same sort of lines.

Vegas scenes are cold blue as well as, what is easiest described as, that fluorescent green colour.  Mexican sequences are a gorgeous lush gold and the flashbacks are intentionally bleached and aged.  All work very well and also help keep the constant changes in locations less confusing.

On a whole, Sharpness is magnificent, but does on the odd occasion look a little soft. 
Colour Saturation is uniformly excellent and consistently appropraite for each location.  The Mexico sequences do fair better, with that lusher look.
The Black level is a little heavy, but this appears to be a "filmic choice" rather than something that occurred during the transfer stage.  Even though it's a little more deeper of black, it's still leaves a good level of shadow detailing.  So you see what needs to be seen, in a scene :)
MPEG artifacting is minimal with just a few odd shots that show minor levels of the background hunting.

Spread over two layers of an RSDL DVD, the well placed layer change occurs at 87:06.  It's a closeup of James G's Character in the car.  

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AUDIO
When you think comedies, you don't usually associated them with much more than centre channel driven soundtracks.  The Mexican more than breaks that rule, offering a stunning Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround EX track.  The master himself, Gary Rydstrom was in part responsible for the phenomenal sounding mix. 

From the get-go the sheer chrispness of the sound was evident and really stands out.  Every aspect of this mix offers the cleanest and clearest of sound. 

Musically, it's a room filler with a wonderful level of ambience to the surrounds and a very wide and deep front soundstage.  (though I do think Mr Silvestri's score sounds at times, a little too much like the one he did for a certain western starring Sharon Stone :)  Bass levels go nice and deep when required, so you'll quite a few good thumps out of this mix. 

Sound Effects wise, NOTHING is left out.  Every channel is utilised to great effect and compliments the on-screen and offscreen action perfectly. 

As for the The Surround channels.. YOWSERS!  They ALL get a full bodied workout.  in Surround EX mode, Surround Sound placement is perfect.   The Surround Back Channel is not only used for a deeper level of ambience, but also for some excellent behind the head sound cues.  For a killer "6.1" moment, check out the ricocheting bullet sequence starting around the 20:45 minute mark.  The sequence starts with the zing of a single bullet as it flies directly from behind to front and then multiple bullets flying all over the place with distinct placement from all 6 channels in the mix..but mostly in the 3 surrounds...it's a cracker moment :) 

The USA version also sports a DTS audio track and given this is an absolutely stunning mix, it is such a pity DTS was neglected on the PAL version :(

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EXTRAS
Unlike the bare bones rental version, this one has a few goodies and ALL are presented in TRUE Anamorphic Widescreen.

• Audio Commentary. Director Gore Verbinksi, writer John Wyman, and Editor Craig Wood lend their voices.  (Wood's seems to take the backseat moreso)
  Not a bad commentary, but it's quite laid back, as it's obvious they're watching the movie perhaps a little too much, instead of talking about it :)
• Making Of.  Running approx 16 minutes, this is a terrific little featurette offering some great little tid-bits and is certainly better than what many DVDs try to pass off as a "making of".
• Deleted Scenes.  Damn these LOOK good, these are quite near the quality of the main feature.  running over 20 minutes these are mostly extended sequences to shots in the film.  There's also an audio commentary for these, but for some reason you Can Not change the audio stream on the fly. AND while you can have subtitles playing for either audio type, the movie dialogue or the commentary, you can't change them on the fly either.  Quite often when listening to a comm track while watching deleted scenes (or even the main feature) I like to put on the movie dialogue subtitles, and with these deleted scenes, you can't. It's not a big deal really, but given the nature of this DVD, seems like an authoring oversight which was cheaper to fix by changing the audio/subtitle option via menu access.
• Delete Scene with Brad Pitt. For whatever reason, this one deleted scene is separate from the rest...hmmm
• Trailers.  2 of 'em, both quite similar to each other, with 2 channel sound

While Brad and Julia have about as much chemistry as a brother and sister, The Mexican is none the less a great little off-beat film, that all 3 leads shine in.  Picture wise it's terrific, and sound wise its amazing..I just wish we got a DTS track on this one as it would TRULY benefit from this sort of mix..c'mon Universal/Dreamworks you could if you wanted to!