Machete
By Nick Manteris · 0 Comments · Leave a Comment
It’s kind of amazing that Machete exists as a feature film. It was originally one of the fake trailers that appeared between Robert Rodriguez’s Planet Terror and Quentin Tarantino’s Death Proof in the the spectacular box-office failure, Grindhouse. It’s filmed in that same dirty, low-budget manner and has the same B-movie exploitation style as that double-feature. (It’s technically Mexploitation for this film though.) It was unfortunate that Grindhouse did so terribly because it would have opened up film to an entirely new sub-genre, so it’s nice to see a similar movie was spawned from the ashes of that project. I can’t imagine who decided that it would be a good idea to emulate the style and tone of a pair of movies that lost millions of dollars though. I’m glad it happened, but it was so incredibly unlikely. Machete seems to be appealing to a broader audience than Grindhouse did, so perhaps this will redeem the concept.
Supposedly, Rodriguez wrote the screenplay for Machete more than 15 years ago because he imagined Trejo in a role like this one from the first time they met. I seriously doubt this is true since there have been multiple conflicting reports about characters and plot points in the film... right up until the release. He might have had some ideas written down, but, unless it was abnormally long and tons of things were cut out, a full script doesn’t seem likely.
In the first 3 minutes there is a huge chunk of unnecessary exposition, an unrealistic gun battle, several violent (and awesome) machete incidents and a girl wearing nothing but her prison wallet. The exposition carries on throughout the film, the violence stays at about the same level and we even get some more boobs towards the end. The dialogue is cheesy and the plot is thin, but actors all seem to be having fun, which is always good. Machete’s greatest strength is that it doesn’t take itself seriously. (So much so, that it makes Aja’s Piranha 3D look like a serious drama by comparison.) The worst part of Machete is the completely ridiculous and over-the-top scene with the low-riders. Don't get me wrong, most of this movie falls into the "so bad it's good" category, but it was a conscious effort on the part of everyone involved (I hope) and it provides some serious entertainment. The low-riders scene passes up "so bad it's good" on its way into "so incredibly bad it's just really bad" territory... and it doesn't even look back.
- Score
- 6/10
Overall, it’s a fun ride and I wouldn’t have any problems recommending it to anyone that likes mindless action, violence or hot girls. Chris Cooper passed up a role in this film because he said the script was the most absurd thing he’d ever read. That sounds about right. From a filmmaking standpoint, Machete fails on just about every level, but if this is the kind of thing you dig – and you should already know if this is your type of flick – then you will definitely be entertained.
