Bloody Machete Goes Back to the Grindhouse
After drug lord Torrez (Steven Seagal) kills his wife and child and the leaves him for dead, three years later former Mexican Federale Machete (Danny Trejo) finds himself across the border in Texas trying to find work as a day laborer. But after Booth (Jeff Fahey) contracts him to kill incumbent anti-immigration State Senator McLaughlin (Robert De Niro) only to double-cross him, the one-time law enforcement officer wants vengeance, the bloodstained trail leading back to the criminal who originally made him an outlaw.
Danny Trejo in Machete © 20th Century Fox
I’m not really sure what there is to say about Robert Rodriguez’s (El Mariachi, Sin City, Spy Kids) latest B-movie creation Machete other than to point out this is a schlock genre enterprise based on a fake trailer crafted for his and Quentin Tarantino’s 2007 double-bill Grindhouse. If you were one of the people in the audience who cheered the sight of Danny Trejo soaring threw the sky on a motorcycle equipped with a machine gun than this is the movie for you. If you were not, or even if just the sound of something like that makes your eyes roll and starts to turn you stomach, than it is not. Simple as that. No more detail required.
If only that were true. Sadly, as this is review, I am supposed to come up with something interesting or witty or even vaguely sarcastic to say about it. The problem is nothing is coming to mind. Yes Rodriguez (working with co-director Ethan Maniquis) has a blast rummaging around in his genre playpen. Sure there are moments of extreme bloodletting and gore that are as truly extraordinary as anything the filmmaker as ever unleashed. And, of course it is borderline awesome to watch 67-year-old Trejo continue to be a total badass, rip people’s throats out and bed every 20-something (like Jessica Alba, Michelle Rodriguez and, yes, Lindsay Lohan) that comes his way.
All of this is very cool, but I’m not entirely sure it’s entertaining. At 105-minutes it’s way too long, Rodriguez unable to maintain momentum even if the film’s violently absurdist tone never wavers. It also doesn’t quite where to go or how to end, knowing it needs to use as many scenes from that fake trailer as possible saving the majority of them for the absurdly silly climax. But by then the thrill is sadly gone, and no amount of intestinal fluid or cranial trauma can change that fact.
Not that all of this can’t be fun. I enjoyed a great deal of the picture, especially during the wild and wooly first half when Machete is busting out of a hospital using a poor guy’s innards as a rope or when Michelle Rodriguez is using a raw egg as some sort of mystical medical device. I absolutely adored all of De Niro’s fake Senatorial commercials which, considering the vitriol being unleashed during the currently raging political debates, aren’t nearly as far-fetched as we’d like them to be. Finally, any movie that can make me laugh and want to puke almost in the very same instant can’t be all bad, and seen in packed theatre with an audience receptive to that sort of thing it’s almost impossible not to sit back and enjoy oneself.
Still, as nice as those statements are at a certain point the whole thing devolves into nothing more than mildly amusing, sometimes disgusting, an often too sadistic for its own good cacophony of noise. I grew tired of the film, no longer was as captivated by the wily off-center whirligig as I was during the first couple of acts. By the time it was finished I just didn’t care anymore, and while I can’t get worked up enough to throw anything close to a fit that doesn’t mean I’m willing to give the film a pass, either. The bottom line is that Machete was borderline entertainment to begin with, and in the end the only work visa or green card I see this one getting is for early access into the DVD bargain bin at your local Best Buy.
- Review reprinted courtesy of the SGN in Seattle
Film Rating: êê (out of 4)
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