Classic RodriguezBy John DeSando, "It's Movie Time," "Cinema Classics," and "On the Marquee"
Padre Benito del Toro: It's not safe for you to be here.
Machete: I'm not looking for "safe."
Padre Benito del Toro: No, I mean it's not safe for me for you to be here!
When you can sit back and relax with a Grindhouse satire like Machete, then you are a cinema devotee who accepts outrageous violence and a bit of skin in a Mexploitation fun house.
Robert Rodriguez (whose El Mariachi started his career) is the co-writer/co-director (with Ethan Maniquis) of arguably his best production since Sin City?Machete. Or maybe his and Quentin Tarantino's cult fav, Grindhouse (2007). At any rate, Rodriguez has become synonymous with outright bloody business reminiscent of cheap B movies in the '70's, and he's the best at it.
Machete, played by Danny Trejo, is as ugly as you could hope for in an unstoppable warrior with restless knives. He is a Mexican federale seeking revenge for his family slaughtered by drug lord Torrez (Steven Seagal with a bad toupee). Although the hearty laughs don't last the whole film (after all, too many severed limbs are not sustainable comedy), Rodriguez has other moments to keep us interested, such as a bare-breasted Lindsey Lohan in a pool scene and in another with a machine gun in nun's garb.
All of this fun is in the service of a message, albeit too obvious for my tastes as it slows the latter part of the film with stagey speeches about the crimes against illegal immigrants. The bad guys promote a tougher border presence to deter the aliens, not because they are doing anything immoral, but because tighter borders mean higher prices.
Machete puts an amusing end to a tepid cinema summer (with the exception of the challenging Inception)?after all, if Robert De Niro, Jessica Alba, Jeff Fahey, Cheech Marin, and Don Johnson can have fun in this mayhem, so can we.
John DeSando co-hosts It's Movie Time, Cinema Classics, and On the Marquee for WCBE 90.5. The shows can be heard streaming at http://publicbroadcasting.net/wcbe/ppr/index.shtml and on demand at http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/wcbe/arts.artsmain Contact him at JDeSando@Columbus.RR.com