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Get the Gringo

2012 film directed by Adrian Grunberg

Manuscripts, fine bindings, an engraving plate and preserved performance ephemera
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Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 14, 2026
Entity authorityQ403442
Source-derived summary

Get the Gringo (also known as How I Spent My Summer Vacation) is a 2012 American action film directed by Adrian Grunberg, who co-wrote the film with Mel Gibson, who starred in the film.

Plot

The film opens with a getaway driver and his wounded accomplice dressed as clowns fleeing from American Border Patrol toward the Mexican border. The driver crashes through the border fence, whereupon he is arrested by corrupt Mexican police officers Vasquez and Romero. When they find over $2 million in the back seat of the car, they imprison him in El Pueblito prison under false charges, keep the cash for themselves, and cremate his dead accomplice. As one of the only Americans incarcerated there, the driver becomes known as "the Gringo".

El Pueblito proves surprising, operating more like a small ghetto than a prison. The Gringo quickly manages to work out the prison's criminal hierarchy and engages in petty thefts and robberies from some of the prison's less reputable businesses. One of these thefts is witnessed by an unnamed kid who is living with his incarcerated mother and is protected by the prison's criminals. Curious, the Gringo presses him to explain why the criminals protect him, but the Kid refuses.

Later, the Gringo stops the Kid from an ill-fated assassination attempt on Javi, leader of the crime family that runs El Pueblito.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Get the Gringo” as 2012 film directed by Adrian Grunberg. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Gringo, film and directed.

Editorial reviewA productive route into publication, performance and collection histories when the underlying object or edition remains clearly identified. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—2012—that can be checked directly. The authority record carries competing date values—2012-01-01, 2013-02-28, 2012-06-21—which should remain separate until their references and qualifiers are resolved. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Gringo, film and directed providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Get the Gringo”, the useful work is to connect “2012 film directed by Adrian Grunberg” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

Object files, edition statements, performance records and contemporary criticism preserve different stages of the work’s history. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 14, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q403442. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 2 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 2012.

Critical limits

Rights, attribution and provenance may remain disputed even when a general reference summary presents a stable account. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Separate the work, its editions or performances, and its later reception. Catalogue records, publication histories and object files often preserve different parts of that story.

Best used for
  • Identifying works and editions
  • Tracing reception history
  • Finding collection records
Verify next

The original object or edition, catalogue raisonné, performance record, rights file and holding institution.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Get the Gringo”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Get the Gringo primary sources, Get the Gringo archive and Gringo research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Get the Gringo”?
  2. Which edition, object, performance or recording is being described?
  3. How did later circulation or interpretation alter the work’s reception?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Get the Gringo” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.