March 2, 2001| Imagine a screwball comedy with a body count and you’re ready for The Mexican, an arrestingly offbeat shaggy-dog story that somehow remains fleet, fresh and funny even during its most dizzying mood swings between droll whimsy and sudden violence. Brad Pitt and Julia Roberts are immensely appealing as the above-the-title leads, but James Gandolfini commits grand larceny by stealing a major hunk of the movie for himself. And mind you, that’s only one of the many surprises that await you in this raffish frolic.

Once again dimming his star power to slip into a colorfully sleazy character, Pitt strikes the right balance of klutziness and low cunning as Jeff, a low-level courier for L.A. mobsters. Jeff isn’t exactly a master criminal -– he’s scarcely more than a flunky, employed as punishment for a past screw-up  -– and Samantha (Roberts), his short-fused live-in girlfriend, wants him to change careers. Unfortunately, Jeff doesn’t have much of a choice when his boss (Bob Balaban) orders him to do one “last” job: He’s sent south of the border to retrieve a priceless and supposedly cursed pistol known as The Mexican. Samantha is so enraged when Jeff accepts the assignment –- thus delaying their planned trip to Las Vegas -- that she decides to drive to Nevada on her own.

Jeff easily obtains the pistol in San Miguel, but even more easily loses it when his car is stolen. Meanwhile, on the road to Vegas, Samantha is accosted by a gun-wielding thug, who in turn is neutralized by Leroy (Gandolfini), a somewhat more sensitive hit man. Forcing himself upon Samantha as an unwelcome traveling companion, Leroy says he plans to hold her as a hostage, just in case Jeff gets any funny ideas about delivering The Mexican to the L.A. mobsters. Samantha is incredulous -– she doubts Jeff would ever have any ideas, funny or otherwise -– but, like her errant boyfriend, she’s in no position to argue.

One thing leads to another, on parallel tracks, on either side of the border.  In Mexico, Jeff bumbles his way from one sticky situation to the next, evidencing survival skills that give a whole new meaning to the term “dumb luck.” (Another character marvels: “By the grace of God, you have managed to Forrest Gump your way through things!”) In Las Vegas, Leroy is an unexpectedly sympathetic listener while Samantha prattles endlessly about her rocky relationship with Jeff.  Indeed, the funniest scenes in The Mexican illustrate that, deep down, Leroy is a deeply sensitive fellow with his own set of relationship “issues.” When he isn’t shooting people, or handcuffing hostages to hotel-room beds, he’s a real sweetheart.

Gandolfini is splendidly funny as Leory, a sad-eyed lug who just happens to be ruthlessly lethal in his unforgiving professionalism. He’s sneaky and subtle in his scene stealing, but at his very best during an interlude in a roadside diner where he and Roberts give and take as equals. Pay close attention, by the way, and you’ll catch his wink-wink, nudge-nudge allusion to the anxiety-ridden mobster he portrays in HBO’s The Sopranos.

Working from a witty and free-wheeling screenplay by J.H. Wyman, director Gore Verbinski (Mouse Hunt) does a fine job of fusing the movie’s disparate elements -– everything from frenetic slapstick to affecting tragedy, from blazing gunplay to sepia-toned, silent-movie flashbacks -– into a consistently engaging and uniquely satisfying whole. Don’t misunderstand: This isn’t a brazenly stylish pop-culture crazy-quilt, ala Snatch or 3,000 Miles to Graceland, or yet another Tarantino-flavored riff of gun-and-poses melodrama. The Mexican plays like hardboiled fiction with a sense of playfulness – like Jim Thompson on laughing gas – but it never pushes a joke or overplays its hand.

Even the comically menacing Mexican characters who impede Jerry’s progress are rendered with relative restraint. There are few examples of potentially offensive stereotyping, primarily because the gringos appear more corrupt –- and much, much more thick-witted -– than any of the locals in and around San Miguel.

Just as important, The Mexican generates more than enough good will to get away with a genuinely jolting plot twist in its final half hour that might have completely derailed a lesser entertainment.

The comedy is character-driven, and it helps a lot that the two lead characters are played so winningly by Pitt and Roberts. Considering how The Mexican is being sold as a star vehicle built for two, it may seem a bit strange that Jerry and Samantha are apart for so long, throughout so much of the story. But that, too, is part of the movie’s quirky charm: Each character discovers that absence really does make the heart grow fonder, while the audience enjoys ample quality time with both.