If I had to sum up Machete in one word, it would be “ridiculous.” And I mean that both in the normal sense and also “ridiculously good.” I’ve been sitting on this review for a while because of requests from the movie studio, but coyly began a “non-review” conversation piece here, which you may also enjoy.
Robert Rodriguez got his start making an action-packed, low budget B-movie called El Mariachi about a gunslinger and his guitar, full of romance, action, and lots of blood. You may know the film’s follow-up Desperado or the sequel Once Upon a Time in Mexico. With Machete, Rodriguez perfectly returns to these roots and the sub-genre that he both invented and inexplicably seems to be the only person who can make films like this.
Machete is a loving ode to B movies of the past. But unlike most of those movies, this film is well acted, well scripted, and full of a surprising amount of poignant social commentary. What began as a fake trailer for Rodriguez’s joint project with Quentin Tarantino Grindhouse, Machete is now a full-fledged film and a great way to cap off your summer movie season.
If you watch the trailer for Machete, it tells you exactly what you need to know:
“They call him Machete…he was given an offer he couldn’t refuse.
Set up, double-crossed, and left for dead!
He knows the score!
He gets the women!
He kills the bad guys!
They’re about to find out, they just f#$%ed with the wrong Mexican!
Action! Suspense! Emotion!
When you hire Machete to kill the bad guys, you better make sure the bad guy isn’t you!!!”
And that’s basically what this movie is. It is so self-aware and some of the dialogue so intentionally awful that you can’t help but be giddy.
But like Rodriguez’s previous creations of El Mariachi, Machete is almost a mythical being, whose adventure is as much Southwest-inspired tall tale as it is Greek myth.
This is beyond a breakout role for Trejo, who you’ve probably noticed as a staple in most of Rodriguez’s other films, especially in the Spy Kids franchise and a knife-wielding assassin in Desperado. It’s hard to imagine him doing many other things beyond this role that will be this good, though.Lucky for us, early word is that Machete will return in two sequels.
The rest of the cast is also superb. Machete’s rogues gallery is filled out by Robert DeNiro as a demagoging and bigoted state senator, Don Johnson as a leader of a border-patrolling militia, Jeff Fahey (TV’s Lost) as the man who sets up Machete, and Steven Seagall, a Mexican druglord who seems to have ties to all of this who has a history with Machete.
But Machete’s allies include a conflicted immigration and customs agent played by Jessica Alba, a nascent revolutionary fighting for immigrant rights from her secret base inside a taco truck played amazingly by Michelle Rodriguez, and a shotgun wielding priest played by Cheech Marin.
Lindsay Lohan also shows up in this film and, I may get beat up for saying this, does a pretty good job. She’s ocassionaly passable in a film when she’s not getting herself covered by the gossip rags.
But the final person that makes this movie is the City of Austin. She is a seminal part of this movie and as much a part of the fabric of the film as Las Vegas is to Ocean’s 11. I had a somewhat hard time concentrating on the film at times because I kept saying to myself “I know where that is!” It also really, really made me want to go get tacos from one of our many delectable food trucks.
I only have a few complaints with the film. The first was pacing and length. Sometimes the movie just felt a little overbloated. Some of the sequences felt more like padding, such as an extended sequence of driving a motorcade of low-riders through town. This movie is so much non-stop action that when you do get a breather you almost wish they’d get on with it to get to the next cool thing.
Some of the stunts and action also seemed gratuitous. I don’t know how to describe it except this way: in several of the Hong Kong action films Jackie Chan did in the late 90s, like Operation Condor, Who Am I, or Mr. Nice Guy, it seems like some of the stunt sequences were simply MacGuyvered together: we have a stepladder, a nylon rope, a bicycle, some butcher paper, and a lazy-boy recliner—what can we do with these objects to choreograph a cool fight scene? Rodriguez, in once again finding his true voice and craft after a couple of recent misfires (eg, Shorts) seemed to take every great idea he had and shoved it into this one film. That makes the film for more on the “all killer no filler” and “more is more” scale of action, but for people who may find this gratutitous you’ve been warned.
And finally, I have to complain a little about is the unevenness of the film’s serious subtext to its B-movie roots. Rodriguez may have made the perfect movie for our time—who knew when he was writing and filming this we’d have Arizona’s SB 1040 or major political figures calling for repeal of the 14th amendment amid talk of terrorist anchor babies? But that’s exactly what we have here. The characters, each from their own perspective, lay out their case for why things are the wat they are, and how they need to change. It can be a cerebral discussion of the issue… until the next scene Machete is attacking someone with a weed whacker! So it’s a little bit jarring to have to constantly turn your brain on and off for fear of missing something or else thinking so much you’ll stop enjoying the film. Regardless, trying to attack such an important issue with such a ridiculous narrative and script is kind of like trying to solve world hunger with a finger-painting. It conveys its message clearly but then leaves you wondering if this was really the right medium for that message. Then you understand that, yes, this is not only appropriate but perhaps the most appropriate forum for this discussion.
So here’s a recommendation for your Labor Day: go see a movie that touches on the issues facing our labor force—our day labor force—but don’t take it too seriously and remember that, after all, this is just a B movie.
3 ½ stars