A poor man’s Bond

“Bandido” is a bust. As murky as its release print, it is a stale, incoherent spy caper set in Mexico and starring a miscast Carlos Gallardo as “the best breaking and entry man in the country,” blackmailed by the CIA into retrieving a coveted CD now in the possession of a crime lord (Kim Coates). This poor man’s Bond adventure boasts a few glamour girls and a couple of spectacular stunts, but director Roger Christian is unable to make either count for anything -- and gets no help from Scott Duncan and Ned Kerwin’s mishmash of a script. Slight and unprepossessing, Gallardo was ideal in the title role of the 1992 cult film “El Mariachi!” as a luckless entertainer mistaken for a dangerous escaped convict but lacks the physical presence and charisma to play a romantic action hero.

-- Kevin Thomas

“Bandido,” R for violence, language and brief nudity. Times guidelines: Considerable violence and bloodshed, unsuitable for children. At selected theaters.