MACHETE
(2010)
FEATURING: Danny Trejo’, Jessica Alba, Michelle Rodriguez, Jeff Fahey, Cheech Marin, Don Johnson, Lindsey Lohan, Steven Seagal & Robert Deniro
Produced by: Robert Rodriguez Aaron Kaufman Iliana Nikolic Rick Schwartz
Distributed by: 20th Century Fox
Written by: Robert Rodriguez & Álvaro Rodriguez
Directed by: Robert Rodriguez & Ethan Maniquis
Robert Rodriguez is a veritable one man band when it comes to his brand of “film making”. I have been acquainted with his type of film (Recently branded “Mexploitation.) since 1995’s Desperado. I count the soundtrack of that film as one of my top favorites even today.
I watched a number of Robert’s films over the years and I’ve come to one conclusion.
Robert Rodriguez doesn’t do endings…well, if at all. Nope, he can’t finish.
At the conclusion of Desperado, Antonio Banderas’ heroic mariachi character discovers that his arch villain is actually his “brother” (yes, Rodriguez actually pulled an “Empire Strikes Back on his “smark” audience.). This is one of the cheapest and laziest ways to end a movie.
Another thing Rodriguez is great at doing is creating visually interesting characters…and then doing nothing with them. I cite “From Dusk til Dawn” as a prime example. The character of Satanico Pandemonium (Salma Hayek in her prime no less..). This Aztec Vampire Queen is introduced and dispatched in less than five minutes.
That being said … Machete has a GREAT OPENING !! Five minutes in and I’m sold on Danny Trejo as this Ultimate Badass.
After that, well … things get a little muddled to say the least.
The story revolves around an immigrant, Machete (Danny Trejo), a former Mexican Federale turned renegade. After a shakedown with a drug lord (Steven Seagal), Machete roams Texas looking to do yard work in exchange for money. Michael Booth (Jeff Fahey), a local businessman and spin doctor, explains to Machete that the corrupt Senator McLaughlin (Robert De Niro) is sending hundreds of illegal’s out of the country.
In order to stop this, Booth offers Machete $150,000 to kill McLaughlin. Machete accepts the murder contract. As Machete attempts to assassinate McLaughlin during a rally, he is double-crossed and one of Booth's henchmen shoots him. It is revealed that Booth orchestrated the entire attempted assassination as part of a false flag operation to gain public support for McLaughlin's harsh anti-illegal-immigration laws.
By setting up Machete as the patsy, the conspirators make it appear that an outlaw illegal Mexican immigrant has tried to assassinate the senator.
This is the basic premise of “Machete” and Trejo runs with what little he has been given in this … his vanity project. I like Danny Trejo, don’t get me wrong. He has been in a hell of a lot of movies. He appears to be Rodriguez’s muse, so this movie is completely justified in my eyes. A lot of people have been put off by what they suspect is some type of political pro-illegal dogma that runs through the movie.
Don’t’ be … It’s just more lazy script writing by all parties involved. Machete’s origins lie in a movie two years back, a cinematic faux exploitation movie known as “Grindhouse”. Quentin Tarantino and Rodriguez filmed two separate movies as a double feature complete with pseudo trailers (one of which was Machete.) included. Rodriguez’s segment “Planet Terror” was definitely the better of the two movies melded together in a disappointing failure at the box office.
Machete drags it’s cinematic feet after it’s first initial five minutes of grind house glory. Everything other than the action scenes, which I suspect were exclusively filmed by Rodriguez feels labored… almost like a film school project.
The inclusions of Jessica Alba seems tacked on in light of the fact that this “film” already has a strong lead in Michelle Rodriguez’s “SHE” character. Alba meanders around the film trying to look cop tough, but it just doesn’t work. Alba simply doesn’t belong in a Robert Rodriguez “movie”. Everything about Machete screams exploitation except for this actress.
It is well known that Rodriguez almost always includes liberal amounts of nudity in his films and this film is no different with Mayra Leal (completely nude) kicking off the festivities at the five minute mark. Alba does not do nudity and some have sighted this as one of the things that tainted FRANK MILLER’S SIN CITY collaboration with Rodriguez in 2005.
Rodriguez actually had to take time and budget to digitally superimpose Alba’s face onto a nude model for a shower scene. Why? Why not just cast Leal in the role since Alba has made it clear that she’s not doing nudity? Machete was reportedly budgeted at 20 million. Think about how many computer techs had to work on digitally stripping Alba. That money probably could have been spent on more effects shots.
And speaking of nudity and effects … I’d like to address Lindsey Lohan’s presence in this movie at this time. Lohan has been stunt cast as the troubled daughter of Jeff Fahey’s Michael Booth. In what is essentially a cameo, Lohan appears in a disheveled state and semi-nude in at least three scenes (Honestly, I wish they would have superimposed Lohan’s face onto her 2005 body.). There’s some poor editing in Lohan’s introduction scene where it is quite visible that an Hispanic extra is subbing for her. This made me think that Rodriguez hadn’t acquired her services at that time. Her scenes all appear to be shot in one day, judging from the ill-fitting nun’s habit that she wears near it’s conclusion.
I really can’t fault Lindsey Lohan for appearing in Machete. It’s hard to fight addiction, public apathy and stay relevant while trying to keep her day job. More power to her.
However there are a trio of supposed actors that I would like to take to task for appearing in this “film”.
Those individuals would be Steven Segal (in “Brown face” no less), Don Johnson (Doing a confederate civil war enactment apparently.) … and last but definitely not least … ROBERT DENIRO (An Oscar Winning actor & Hollywood Icon / Archetype).
I can understand Segal and Johnson snatching up all the free money Rodriguez was burning with this project, but Deniro made my heart sink appearing in this project as incumbent Texas senator McLaughlin. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry when I heard Deniro using a thick southern accent and phoning in another performance (ala Jackie Brown).
He appears to be taking the John Carradine route late in his career. I almost wish it would have been Christopher Walken in the role instead. With Walken you can believe anything, Deniro … I always expect him to be some sort of principled thug, it’s the kind of role he made famous and is most identified by unfortunately. Typecast busting or not … Deniro should have passed this one up ( I suspect he never thought it would see the light of day outside of the bargain bin at Sam Goodies.).
All this being said, the question remains … “Is Machete a GOOD FILM?”
That answer would be a DEFINITIVE “NO”.
But you could do a lot worse in what has been an extremely poor summer for lovers of film in all it’s myriad forms and genres.
USA Today called MACHETE aka. Danny Trejo a MEXICAN SUPERHERO. After viewing the movie, I can not argue with that at least. If only Machete was given more to do in his own starring vehicle. If only Rodriguez cared enough to direct more than just the action scenes.
MACHETE gets 2 out of 5 stars.
…shadowgeek10 returns to the shadows once more.