There’s a reason why one of the fake trailers from the Grindhouse package (Planet Terror and Death Proof) became so popular. It features an incredibly interesting and above all cool character as he hacks his way through a basic seventies revenge/vigilante movie structure. Machete is an entertaining action comedy with a strong political backstory. It was so refreshing to see a hero that’s actually an anti-hero coming from Mexico and kicking ass. And not just kicking ass but fucking both the wife and the daughter of his greatest enemy.
As you can notice, Machete doesn’t take itself too seriously, and neither should you. However, if you look beneath all the flashy visuals and cool scenes, you’ll discover that there’s something missing. A coherent story that should act as a glue and keep all these powerful elements together. If they only worked a little bit more on that side of the movie instead of undeniably charming scenes, we would have a masterpiece before us. Still, Machete offers loads of fun and it’s definitely a movie worth watching. It’s full of delightfully graphic and bloody action scenes, true to its title.
I loved all the social and political commentary relating to illegal immigration and the treatment of Mexicans in the great US of A. We will be following Machete, a former cop from Mexico who gets entangled in a web of lies in murder in the great state of Texas. Of course, we cannot talk about Machete without talking about Danny Trejo in his first lead role. First of all, I urge you to read Danny’s biography just to get a taste of what kind of life he had. He was using heroin and cocaine by the age of 12 and was in and out of prison for the next ten years. And then acting saved his life.
After his first role in Runaway Train, Trejo lands a great role in one of my favorite movies Blood in Blood Out. And the rest was history. However, Machete features an all-star cast for a movie of this size and genre. Jessica Alba, Michelle Rodriguez, and Robert De Niro are all here along with a lot of other familiar faces. I mean, Steven Seagal is the main bad guy for fuck’s sake. And I want to clear something up, Machete in the movie Machete is not the same Machete in the movie Spy Kids. Their backstories are completely different and the same goes for their family history.
Machete is not a movie everyone will like. I’m sure there are a lot of people who simply won’t get what they were trying to do here. If you feel like that, don’t worry, and revisit Machete in a couple of years. And if you’re a racist asshole, well, then you can fuck off. And I’m glad this movie pissed you off. Moving on, I don’t want to bore you with technical details as they were excellent. I especially liked the cinematography which was similar to other retro-grindhouse movies like Hobo With a Shotgun.
Apart from gory scenes, we will also have a decent amount of nudity, which is always a plus. Some of it will be straightforward semi-sleazy nudity. And some of it will be tantalizing and stylish semi-nudity. After all, this is a movie starring both Jessica Alba and Michelle Rodriguez. Opposite of them we have the one and only Danny Trejo. Finally, if you’re looking for movies like Machete, I recommend you check out Feast, Black Dynamite, and Ricky Oh: The Story of Ricky.
Directors: Ethan Maniquis, Robert Rodriguez
Writers: Robert Rodriguez, Álvaro Rodríguez
Cast: Danny Trejo, Robert De Niro, Jessica Alba, Steven Seagal, Jeff Fahey, Cheech Marin
Fun Facts: This is the first time Steven Seagal plays the head bad guy.
Rating:
IMDb Link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0985694/
