When I heard Machete was being made into a movie, I was ecstatic. The preeminent fake trailer created for Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez's Grindhouse double feature created more buzz than either Death Proof or Planet Terror. It also usurped them in excitement, in my opinion. That's not to say both were failures. Far from it. I enjoyed both flicks, especially as a two-for-one deal. I just felt the Machete trailer better embodied what grindhouse features were all about.
Now a full-length motion picture, Machete goes on to prove my theory. It is a superior grindhouse flick than either Death Proof or Planet Horror. While those films captured the look and feel of the cheesy genre, Machete embraces it. The purposely bad edits and corny dialogue aren't what make this a grindhouse feature. The content it represents does. It's story is pure cheese, not it's outer appearance.
It's hero, Machete (Danny Trejo), isn't as sleazy as those who pioneered the genre. In fact, he's not even as corny. He rarely, if ever, dishes out one-liners, or speaks for that matter. He lets the guns and his trusty machete do the talking. Whenever he does speak, it feels much more important. Though he fits perfectly into this terrain, I feel he could be taken seriously as an actual action hero.
His fable, however, does not. It starts out like most action flicks, with the hero attempting to save the day. A hostage is being held in the grasps of Torrez (Steven Seagal), a notorious criminal residing in Mexico. Machete goes against his captain's orders and infiltrates his headquarters, only for it to be a set-up. The hostage is promptly killed, as are his wife and children. They leave him in to die in a slow, fiery death, but he escapes.
A few years later, he hides out near the border in Texas and keeps a low profile. He works for a woman named Luz (Michelle Rodriguez), who operates a taco stand. Secretly, she is the head of an organization to transport mexicans into the country, so they can have an honest living. Standing in her way are a multitude of adversaries.
Her most direct foe is Sartana (Jessica Alba), a federal immigration officer who has been spying on her for the past few weeks. She can't land any reason to ship her and her comrades back to Mexico, as she has a green card, as do her friends. She eventually joins their side when she and Machete become allies, but more on that later.
Doing worse for Luz's cause is Senator McLaughlin (Robert De Niro), a maniacal freedom fighter who has spent his first campaign trying to rid the country of who he refers to as parasites. His tenure is almost up and he's scrambling to convince his fellow citizens to re-elect him. His numbers have been dropping significantly, so it'll be no easy task.
One of his colleagues, Booth (Jeff Fahey), helps him out greatly. After witnessing a street fight involving him, he hires Machete to assassinate Senator McLaughlin. He'll pay him one-hundred and fifty thousand dollars, all to simply put a bullet in his brain. Secretly, he's using him to gain publicity for his client and have him take the fall. Machete reluctantly accepts, as he only wants the cash to donate to Luz's cause.
Booth's associate, Sniper (Shea Whigham), clips McLaughlin in the knee, causing the media to believe it was Machete who attempted the assissination (he too was only going to clip him, as opposed to taking his life). Now on the run, Machete must fight for survival. And as the trailer so eloquently puts it, when a man has nothing to live for, be prepared for the fight of your life.
Robert Rodriguez wasn't lying. Machete is an all-out action extravaganza, never once becoming dull in its hour and forty-five minute time limit. From start to finish, this movie grabs you by the neck and never lets go. Machete hacks his way through dozens of enemies via his fiduciary machete, leaving a path of blood in his wake. Heads are chopped off and limbs are strewn about. Jason Voorhees has some stiff competition.
His loyal machete isn't the only weapon he has at his disposal. Butcher knives, cleavers, skull cravers, weed whackers and shotguns are just a few deadly weapons he uses to grand effect. And he doesn't simply slice and dice and then move onto his next victim. He gets gruesomely creative when he has the time. When in a hospital, he carves a man open, grabs his intestines and uses them as a rope. He hurls through the window and, still holding onto the intestines, swings onto the floor below. Let's see Jason Voorhees do that!
Even his padres know how to throw down. His brother, Padr (Cheech Marin), has relinquished his violent path and is now a man of the cloth. When his brother comes to help, however, he doesn't mind taking a break and pulling out the big guns. And I mean that literally. He takes out quite a few of Booth's men, all with relative ease. He and Machete could make for a great tag team! Sartana is also well-trained in the art of artillery, joining forces with her former enemy to dish out some punishment.
Action scenes such as this never disappointment, but the story does. This time it's not a cause of too little, but too much. Rodriguez and Ethan Maniquis do a fine job in handling both the revenge and illegal immigration story arcs, but add too much baggage to both. There's one too many characters, with many being inserted in to give someone extra baggage. Take Booth's daughter, April (Lindsay Lohan), for instance. The only reason she exists in this movie is to be promiscuous and paint a visceral target on his chest. Lt. Stillman (Don Johnson), on the other hand, is simply here to have another bad guy for Machete to fight. He too works with McLaughlin, scoping the border for any illegal immigrants and killing them on the spot. There's no reason for this, other than to up the ante. Rodriguez and Maniquis should have called instead of raising.
The other main purpose for them is to build up to the action sequences. Those, thankfully, never overcompensate and are highly entertaining. Each are directed with slick camera angles and are visible throughout. They're creative and invigorating, never once settling for the norm. Which is Machete's main selling point. Rodriguez and Maniquis hit the target on that.
-Justin Oberholtzer
