Machete comes from such a meta-realm of ironic existence that I'm not entirely sure I can deal with it. Consider, if you will, that the origin of Robert Rodriguez's epic Mex-ploitation tribute is a fake movie trailer he directed as a comedic aside to his and Quentin Tarantino's dual-feature schlock-fest, Grindhouse. The whole purpose of that trailer was to bring in professional threatening presence Danny Trejo, in all his scowling, scarred glory, and put him at the forefront of a 2-minute run of extreme violence, absurd government intrigue, and unlikely sexual exploits. That trailer? Unquestionably amazing. But now, as a full-fledged film, the question becomes whether or not that excellent 2-minute joke can translate into a compelling 100-minute-plus film. The answer? Mostly, yes.
Credit where credit's due to Trejo, who might not be the world's most versatile actor, but still manages to provide a captivating screen presence throughout the entirety of this movie. He is Machete, a former Federale who finds himself trapped in a Texas border town after an operation against a vile drug lord went horribly awry, and his wife ended up dead in the process. Effectively a man without a country, Machete finds himself wrapped up in a burgeoning war between a gleefully racist Texas state senator ( Robert de Niro, having the most fun you've seen him have in years), along with his greedy aides and allied army of anti-immigration minutemen, and a network of illegal immigrant traffickers, headed up by a fiery taco truck owner (a shockingly passionate Michelle Rodriguez). Machete is tasked by a mysterious man-in-suit (LOST's Jeff Fahey) to assassinate the senator, but of course that's a double-cross, a set-up to lend credence to the senator's anti-immigration platform.
It doesn't quite end there. Jessica Alba shows up as an I.C.E. agent initially hellbent on taking down the network of illegals, Cheech Marin makes an extended, hilarious appearance as Machete's priest brother, and there's a whole convoluted back plot about all the bad guys receiving drug money from the same notorious dealer that killed Machete's wife (a doughy, hysterically-accented Steven Seagal). In short, there's a lot of people, a lot of motives, and a lot of crazy, crazy shit to keep track of, and it's all kind of a convoluted mess.
But it's also a gloriously violent, absurdly over-the-top mess, one that Rodriguez and co-director Ethan Maniquis seem to simply be reveling in. We all know how much Rodriguez loves him some Z-grade drive-in style cinema, and in much the same way as he did in Planet Terror, Rodriguez goes bonkers trotting out as many cliches, cheeseball concepts, and countless tit shots as he can cram into this thing. It's all extremely knowing, all done with endless winks and nods, but it's also a hell of a lot of fun--even more so, I think, than Planet Terror was, simply because it feels less like overt parody, and more like an honest-to-goodness attempt at the real thing.
And again, one must give the credit to Trejo for carrying this movie through. At 66 years old, he somehow looks entirely capable as he slices and dices his way through the myriad gun thugs that are tossed in front of him. Maybe it's that craggly face of his--dude is so tremendously fucked up looking, he is, in some strange way, kind of ageless. Rodriguez and Maniquis also provide plenty of creative opportunities for him to kill some shit, real, real good. Sure, there's plenty of rote stabbing and gushing blood, but when he disembowels one bad guy and uses his intestine to swing out of a window and down to the next floor of a building? That's something kind of special there. Plus we mustn't discount the scenes of Machete beating up thugs using various pieces of gardening equipment.
That is just one of many, many not-so-subtle political jabs that Machete is surprisingly stuffed with. Rodriguez's opinions on immigration and border control aren't exactly clandestine, and here he uses Machete to stomp against the injustices inflicted upon the migrant Mexican population in this country. I'm not even going to sit here and try and pick apart either side of this argument, but I will say that if you're the sort of person that thinks that we should shut down all our borders, or that Arizona has the right idea about things these days, this movie is probably not for you.
At the very least, Rodriguez is incredibly politically incorrect about it. As good exploitation movies should be (even the tribute ones, like this), everything is completely black and white. Trejo's murderous rampage is completely justified in the wake of the crimes committed against him by, well, pretty much every white person in this movie. Fahey's aide is a sniveling, scheming slimebag, de Niro is merely a racist puppet, and Don Johnson, of all people, is some kind of sublime vision of fucking evil as the head of the minutemen group. The only white people who don't fuck Machete over are the white people Machete fucks--and those are primarily limited to Fahey's family, including a very bland Lindsay Lohan, who seems like the only person in this movie not in on the joke.
With all of this said, I think you already know whether or not you want to see this, purely by virtue of what you've seen in the trailers (both the real one for this movie, and the fake Grindhouse one). Unlike, say, The American, Machete is exactly what it professed itself to be: a hyper-aggressive, hyper-bloody, hyper-stylized B-movie with all the trimmings, and a hell of a capper for this summer movie season.
Credit where credit's due to Trejo, who might not be the world's most versatile actor, but still manages to provide a captivating screen presence throughout the entirety of this movie. He is Machete, a former Federale who finds himself trapped in a Texas border town after an operation against a vile drug lord went horribly awry, and his wife ended up dead in the process. Effectively a man without a country, Machete finds himself wrapped up in a burgeoning war between a gleefully racist Texas state senator ( Robert de Niro, having the most fun you've seen him have in years), along with his greedy aides and allied army of anti-immigration minutemen, and a network of illegal immigrant traffickers, headed up by a fiery taco truck owner (a shockingly passionate Michelle Rodriguez). Machete is tasked by a mysterious man-in-suit (LOST's Jeff Fahey) to assassinate the senator, but of course that's a double-cross, a set-up to lend credence to the senator's anti-immigration platform.
But it's also a gloriously violent, absurdly over-the-top mess, one that Rodriguez and co-director Ethan Maniquis seem to simply be reveling in. We all know how much Rodriguez loves him some Z-grade drive-in style cinema, and in much the same way as he did in Planet Terror, Rodriguez goes bonkers trotting out as many cliches, cheeseball concepts, and countless tit shots as he can cram into this thing. It's all extremely knowing, all done with endless winks and nods, but it's also a hell of a lot of fun--even more so, I think, than Planet Terror was, simply because it feels less like overt parody, and more like an honest-to-goodness attempt at the real thing.
And again, one must give the credit to Trejo for carrying this movie through. At 66 years old, he somehow looks entirely capable as he slices and dices his way through the myriad gun thugs that are tossed in front of him. Maybe it's that craggly face of his--dude is so tremendously fucked up looking, he is, in some strange way, kind of ageless. Rodriguez and Maniquis also provide plenty of creative opportunities for him to kill some shit, real, real good. Sure, there's plenty of rote stabbing and gushing blood, but when he disembowels one bad guy and uses his intestine to swing out of a window and down to the next floor of a building? That's something kind of special there. Plus we mustn't discount the scenes of Machete beating up thugs using various pieces of gardening equipment.
At the very least, Rodriguez is incredibly politically incorrect about it. As good exploitation movies should be (even the tribute ones, like this), everything is completely black and white. Trejo's murderous rampage is completely justified in the wake of the crimes committed against him by, well, pretty much every white person in this movie. Fahey's aide is a sniveling, scheming slimebag, de Niro is merely a racist puppet, and Don Johnson, of all people, is some kind of sublime vision of fucking evil as the head of the minutemen group. The only white people who don't fuck Machete over are the white people Machete fucks--and those are primarily limited to Fahey's family, including a very bland Lindsay Lohan, who seems like the only person in this movie not in on the joke.
With all of this said, I think you already know whether or not you want to see this, purely by virtue of what you've seen in the trailers (both the real one for this movie, and the fake Grindhouse one). Unlike, say, The American, Machete is exactly what it professed itself to be: a hyper-aggressive, hyper-bloody, hyper-stylized B-movie with all the trimmings, and a hell of a capper for this summer movie season.
