I remember my cousin Chris coming over when I was small to babysit my sister and I. Or more like watch, not babysit, cause you know I was never a baby, just a little man. More often than not he'd bring a movie over with him and one night it was Robert Rodriguez's Desperado.
I remember the guitar case full of guns. How mysterious and just badass it must be to walk around with one. The cool gun fights, the bad language and wanting to see the part where Antonio Banderas and Salma Hayek just got it on like they were the last two people on the planet! I also remember not being able to see that part either. Sucked being little. But anyway from here on in, this was start of what I knew what I wanted to aspire to do with my life. Make movies.
But that's a whole other topic. We are here to talk Machete!
Machete was born in '07, out of a faux trailer, of the same name, that was part of RR and QT's Grindhouse collaboration; Planet Terror and Death Proof. And for all of you who are gushing over how great Machete is and you didn't see Grindhouse...SHAME ON YOU! You deserved to be violated in unholy places on your body by the blade of Machete.
So now three years later we are treated to a feature length film of that trailer. The movie begins in Mexico where Machete is out to save a missing girl from drug lord numero uno, Torrez, played masterfully by Steven Seagal. Torrez then makes Machete watch as he massacres his entire family and thus the bloody revenge of Machete begins. The back drop of this movie is the immigration issue that, some would say, plague this nation of ours. Machete, being a man who is solely out to get even with the people who wronged him, inadvertently becomes the face of this revolution.
Along the way we meet a dirty Senator, played by Robert De Niro, a hick border patrol guard played by Don Johnson, Jessica Alba who plays a conflicted immigration agent and Michelle Rodriguez who plays Luz a taco vendor who has connections to "She", a person who "gives the people what they want and fills their belly with something more than hate". Sound familiar?
From our trailer review both Dorian and myself were kinda worried about how the movie would eventually look and play out, given that so much of the trailer was dedicated to making it look like Joseph and the Technicolor Dream Coat threw up on itself. But I must say that all that hesitation was laid to rest. Aside from having an exploitative look at how this whole immigration thing might turn out, I was surprised to see that everyone in their roles was perfect! EVEN LINDSEY LOHAN!!!
There were a few parts that I kinda laughed at, and those were seeing Jessica Alba take up this militant leader role near the end of the film and the more I thought it about it, her delivery of it was perfect and it was meant to make us, the audience just go "OH GOD! that was corny," cause its meant to be that.
Hints of Rodriguez's Desperado were sprinkled everywhere. A scene in particular where men come to ambush Machete while he lays in bed with Alba was very reminiscent of the scene with Banderas and Hayek after their porn scene together. But these scenes work in the context of the movie, its not like they are just lazy throw in's. While Banderas was memorable in his execution of certain baddies. Alba takes the gold in a duel with a Luchador-mask wearing assassin. Much like Grindhouse, we are also treated to massive amounts of blood, gore, nudity, beheadings, and homemade weaponery (a la the weed-whack machete) to make this movie a literal crowd pleaser!
While I think Rodriguez gets the right amount of cred for his action and low budgets. No one really comments on the people he picks for his villains! Did you know to fund his first film El Mariachi, Rodriguez subjected himself to experimental drug trials for three months? For a fee of course; and the villain in El Mariachi was a guy he met during those trials? Pretty crazy right? But anyway, you have Joaquim De Almeida in Desperado, Johnny Depp and Willem Dafoe in Once Upon a Time in Mexico, Bruce Willis in Planet Terror and now Robert De Niro, Don Johnson and Mr. Steven Seagal.
Seagal is at the top of his chessy self in Machete. Calling people puneta's at the start of each conversation and hearing him call other's carnal and speak with a spanish accent was just magical to behold. I really hope Seagal shows up in other future Machete movies or just other Rodriguez/Tarantino movies cause he has definitely opened up something that I'm not ready to close yet with Machete.
I don't think I have to tell you that I enjoyed this movie. So just go fucking see it!
Dueces!
StuntmanBob
