3 ½ stars (out of four)
When the exploitation throwback double-feature Grindhouse came out in 2007, you got the sense that co-directors Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino were making the movie for themselves. They had seen countless schlocky B-grade and lower horror and action flicks in their youth and they longed for a day when such films could be appreciated again and maybe even return to cinemas. The final result was an over three-hour trip down their own memory lane, complete with fake trailers for upcoming releases that didn’t exist. The highlight of those faux-trailers was Machete, the story of a Mexican vigilante (Danny Trejo) with a penchant for the titular weapon.Now Robert Rodriguez, along with his co-director Ethan Maniquis, have made that movie, even going so far as to insert most of the footage from the original trailer into the feature-length version. While Grindhouse had occasional moments of brilliance, it was also a good deal self-indulgent, but Machete doesn’t have that problem, partly because its allowed to exist on its own, free from the earlier gimmick and the double-feature running time. Machete commits to its exploitation roots more than either of those earlier Grindhouse features, and is more fun then them too.
Much of the film’s success rests with Danny Trejo as the title character. His performance is so commanding, it was already a classic three years ago in that first trailer. He’s the kind of unstoppable action hero where all questions (“How did he do that?” “How will he survive this one?” “Why does every woman want to sleep with him?”) are answered the same way: Because he’s Machete, duh. Trejo, who might have less lines of dialogue than most of the supporting characters, stomps around the film stone-faced, blade in hand. His mustache is curved in such a way as to give him the look of wearing a perpetual frown, and his face is riddled with scars from a lifetime of fighting. Trejo is so comfortable onscreen, it’s as though this is his fifth Machete feature.
In the full-length movie, Robert Rodriguez and his co-writer and cousin Álvaro Rodriguez give Machete a political agenda too. After losing his wife and daughter at the hands of the drug kingpin Torrez (Steven Seagal), Machete becomes a day laborer along the Texas/Mexico border where deportation is a constant threat for workers. There he befriends Luz (Michelle Rodriguez) who owns a popular taco truck and might just be the mysterious Latino vigilante, Shé (the accent is added over the ‘e’ for an extra nudge and a wink). Shé is said to have helped countless immigrants cross the border and so Luz’s taco truck is under the close watch of Sartana (Jessica Alba), an immigration officer looking to shut down the covert operation.
Looming large over them all is Senator John McLaughlin (Robert De Niro) who is running for reelection under a campaign that highlights a staunch opposition to immigrant rights. He wants to kick everyone out of the state who doesn’t speak English and build an electric fence along the border. Machete, meanwhile, is recruited by a man named Michael Booth (Jeff Fahey), a man who wears a nice suit, drives a limo and has some money to throw around. He wants Machete to assassinate the Senator. Of course, nothing is as simple as it seems and Machete quickly finds himself at the center of a larger conspiracy, one that may even go back to his old nemesis, Torrez.
While Trejo gets most of the glory here, Machete is populated with rich supporting characters. The indispensable Jeff Fahey is utterly convincing even in the film’s most absurd moments and Michelle Rodriguez is a lot of fun to watch in the gun-toting, skin-showing badass chick role. Alba, who has never been much of an actress, is perfectly suited to a role that requires her to look amazing at all times and occasionally scrunch her face when she’s working things out. De Niro’s character starts as an extended cameo and soon becomes a game to see how many ridiculous things the film make can the legendary actor do (a lot, is the answer). Steven Seagal camps it up as the archenemy and gets some deserved laughs, Lindsay Lohan shows up as the promiscuous daughter of Booth, Don Johnston is a militaristic border cop, and Cheech Marin reprises his role from the trailer as the priest who owns a pair of shotguns.
Machete falls under the neo-exploitation genre that started with Grindhouse and here Rodriguez gives us another nostalgic tribute to a kind of movie that maybe never quite existed in the first place, at least not as he remembers it. No exploitation flick could have ever delivered the consistent entertainment offered here and so Machete functions as an action parody while remaining its own beast. This is a gleefully silly movie crafted for a niche audience and it succeeds in its goals, even compared to Grindhouse. The violence is excessive and wildly inventive, characters talk in corny exposition and cornier one-liners, and the editing has a deliberate sloppiness in certain scenes. The film plays everything for a laugh and yet somehow manages to deliver better action scenes than most major blockbusters even in its goofiest moments.
Near the end of the film, there’s an ingenious scene where a group of armed henchmen get together and discuss their thankless jobs. They’ve all been beaten, shot or stabbed by Machete and they wonder if it’s really worth it. “I’ve been watching the boss,” one says, “And to be honest, he seems like a schmuck.” It’s a conversation moviegoers have been waiting for years for nameless henchmen to have. Action aficionados and movie buffs alike have always wanted a movie like this, whether they knew it or not – one that recognizes its absurdity and only revels in its slashings and explosions all the more. Robert Rodriguez offers Machete like a present to those anticipating fans. He’s rewriting film history and giving exploitation flicks a better name than they ever could have made for themselves.
- Steve Avigliano, 9/3/10
