Gringo

We can all root for some good corporate comeuppance. Yet like its protagonist, Gringo starts fast before going south.

This slick caper comedy includes plenty of sordid schemes, double-crosses and zany misadventures from a top-notch cast, yet doesn’t add up to much in the end.

The story opens in an urban office building, and specifically a corporation in which Nigerian immigrant Harold (David Oyelowo) works as a midlevel manager under Richard (Joel Edgerton), who he claims is a friend.

Richard is having an affair with a flirtatious co-worker (Charlize Theron), with whom he’s working to negotiate a merger. That leaves Harold’s position on the chopping block, but rather than a simple layoff, they send him to Mexico to meet with a drug trafficker (Carlos Corona) about a top-secret pill they’ve been funneling south of the border.

Harold becomes a pawn in the chaos that follows, yet instead of turning into a simple victim, Harold might be the one who best knows exactly what’s going on — and how to use it to his advantage.

With a greedy pharmaceutical conglomerate on one side and a Mexican drug cartel on the other, it’s easy for audience rooting interest to gravitate to the center, and specially to Harold, who’s always one step ahead of the game.

Fortunately, Oyelowo (Selma) generates plenty of sympathy with a performance that’s both shrewd and silly. Even as the action becomes gradually more far-fetched, the actor and the script allow our hero to remain grounded without revealing too much about him, too soon.

Australian director Nash Edgerton (The Square) — Joel’s older brother — keeps the pace lively, while the contrived screenplay features some scattered big laughs and a handful of clever twists.

Still, considering the talented ensemble and the broad satirical targets, Gringo really should be more consistently amusing or thrilling or both. Instead, the villains are cartoonish and the plot mechanics become too convoluted.

Whether it’s the works of Elmore Leonard, the Coen brothers, or the Ocean’s Eleven movies, the bar has been raised in recent years when it comes to the types of screwball crime sagas that seem to inspire this effort. In this case, the film’s premise is more compelling than its execution.

Rated R, 110 minutes.