David O'ConnellMachete
November 25th 2010 04:42
Machete might be closer to a rusty blade with yesterday’s shaving errors still congealing on its surface, but it’s hard to help yourself from loving, even if just a little, the irrepressible and audacious assault of Robert Rodriguez’s creative talents on modern cinema. That Texan barn of his has now grown into a pretty damn profitable factory where ideas get tossed around like Pro Hart offshoots. Even his kids are occasionally credited as contributors. Some of his creations stick to the canvas of our memories, leaving behind favourable impressions that persist for years. Whilst others amount to nothing more than a good looking poster that time has reduced to generic tag lines like those piled humiliatingly in a broken writer’s bottom drawer.
Expanded from his Grindhouse trailer, Machete (2010) is a mess, though a blissfully sweet one. By the end you’ll forgive it many things, a paucity of characterisation and logic among them. But it only ever aims for the jugular, and succeeds in ways that would have Pauline Kael writhing with unprintable, demented insults in the balcony of a critic’s graveyard. Machete will never be a darling of the press, no matter what happens from here. And yet beyond its vivid, soaked-in-red interplay and unsubtle posturing there is considerable evidence of a film made with heart, ingenuity and an unfettered creative spirit.
Danny Trejo has been handed the role of a lifetime on a platter as a former Mexican Federale who refused to bend and play along with a drug kingpin’s corrupt game. Three years later, as an illegal in the States, circumstances allow a shot at sweet revenge for the murder of his wife and daughter. Like a thirsty mutt dragging himself through the desert in search of a puddle of spit, Machete leaps at the chance. He maims, he slices and dices; there’s no time for torture when one broad slash of his blade or other makeshift instruments of death are capable of lopping off three heads at a time. His cause may be just but he ain't no goddamn choirboy. He somehow gets to kiss Jessica Alba and Lindsay Lohan smack on the lips.
Even Robert De Niro, whose output of the last decade has been on a sinister downward spiral that even an Oscar or three couldn't arrest, looks to be experiencing something other than a bad case of indigestion on screen for once. Could he actually be having fun up there as a corrupt Senator determined to wipe out the infected wetbacks, all silly accent and even sillier grins? Meet the Fockers I can’t forgive, but De Niro’s credit in Machete at least repairs some of the damage. Apparently he rode into town, broke bread with a filmmaker he'd never met, spat out a few lines and waltzed out. Three days work. But now he’s become one of them: A Robert Rodriguez Actor. Alongside names writ both large and small across the fickle cinematic landscape: Carlos Gallardo, Quentin Tarantino, Fred Williamson, Famke Janssen, Salma Hayek and The Man Who Would Be Usher.
Despite its deliberately B-grade leanings, Machete still has a lot going for it (assuming you consider B-grade leanings negative in the first place), the sheer outlandish volume of spilled blood foremost amongst its most welcome attributes. Sure, it may make little sense, or be related to neither interior or exterior logic, but it offers a whale of a time at the cinema. Contained within are 105 sweltering, renegade minutes of hardcore nonsense spiked with creative deaths aplenty and women bursting forth with the kind of intimidating physical properties that could split an over-zealous quick zoom in two.
For the record, I liked Machete a lot. For what it is, for what it thinks it can be and for what it knows it’ll never be. Who knows how history will treat it. Perhaps it’ll become just another blip on the radar, a fading speck on a map of strangled ideas, wallowing in bargain bins with any number of mistreated ex-rentals. Or maybe one day it’ll be re-animated into a cultdom corpse, playing the midnight circuits and raking in rabid devotees of all persuasions.
At times the film gives off the whiff of a bold, distinguishing statement against the modern cinematic backdrop of romantic comedies made to strict regulations without a single heartbeat of fearlessness. At other times it feels like outtakes from a film school experiment gone wrong. Most final assessments, I feel sure, will conclude with an affectionate compromise.
In Machete, Rodriguez offers up many treats, none more tasty than in populating this place with a rogues gallery of yesterday’s men – rambling, washed-up folk heroes like Steven Seagal trying to stay in character with a dodgy Mexican accent, Jeff Fahey gravelling with a voice from beyond the grave, and Don Johnson lapping up every moment he can get on screen these days.
Where else can you savour the sight of effects maestro Tom Savini crucifying Cheech Marin to a cross in a church? Or be able to cackle at the perverted irony of Lindsay Lohan in a nun’s habit? Sealed inside the darkened, dust-free vacuum with its outlandish celluloid mirages flickering through your brain with an intoxicating mix of instant gratification and revenge as soiled beauty, this is still Robert Rodriguez’s world.
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Comment by Matt Shea
Comment by ShaunK
Screen Adventure
Comment by Bryn
Horrorphile
I'll be seeing this movie this week.
Great review Dave.
Comment by David O'Connell
20/20 Filmsight
Screen Fanatic
Not too many quotable lines in this one Shaun but some excellent, deliberately silly/fun scenes nonetheless.
Look forward to your own verdict Bryn. Have fun with it mate, it's a very entertaining B-grade romp!
Comment by Raoul Duke
Style of Eye
Comment by JohnDoe
Film & TV on DVD
'Machete Don't Text"! is a line worthy of repeating...anyway you read my review so it seems we agree on this one. Not masterpiece cinema just a nice guilty distraction that leaves you grinning.