BRAD Pitt seems to be constantly fighting against his Hollywood hunk image.

He may still be the golden boy of the current crop of leading men, but don't expect him to pander to it in his choice of screen roles.

The 37-year-old actor, who became famous for seducing Geena Davis in Thelma And Louise, has played a lot of seedy characters in his career.

Fight Club was dark and violent, in Snatch he played a fighter and in his new film The Mexican, he's a feuding lover sent south of the border by a mobster to get a valuable antique pistol. And he gets beaten up again.

At least the star teams up with Hollywood's other megawatt smile, Julia Roberts.

The idea of working in a low budget movie in a remote part of Mexico that kind of paired us like Tracy and Hepburn really appealed to me, he explains.

This film just kind of came out of nowhere. I'd flirted with the idea before. Then Julia came on board this project and it was done. The $35m project was shot in the remote Mexican mining town of Real De Catorce. Both Pitt and Roberts took big cuts in their usual fees to make the film.

It's several genres in one movie. It's a road movie, it's a romantic comedy and there's also (Quentin) Tarantino elements to it. That all sounded pretty interesting to me, says Pitt.

He plays Jerry Welbach, a hapless small-time crook who isn't really cut out for a life of crime.

Fed up with Jerry's failures, mob boss Nayman (Balaban) offers him one final shot at redemption to retrieve a priceless ancient pistol known as The Mexican from across the border.

Jerry accepts, as he's heavily indebted to Nayman's boss, Margolese (Hackman), currently languishing in jail.

Unfortunately for Jerry, his girlfriend Samantha (Roberts) isn't too pleased about him taking on another job they were supposed to be going to Las Vegas together and promptly leaves him.

On the road to the gambling capital, Sammy is kidnapped by notorious hitman Leroy (Gandolfini), who agrees to exchange her for the pistol. Suddenly Jerry is in a whole heap of trouble.