Posted on: September 6th, 2010 REVIEW: Machete

There’s no doubt we live in an odd time for movies. Remakes flood the market almost on a weekly basis, and major film franchises can be rebooted within the same decade. And with the onslaught of 3D films gagging for our almighty dollar, clearly spun under the facade of “new” technology, studios are unmistakably looking to the past for originality – grasping at ideas that most of us won’t remember, or will gladly pay $12 to celebrate, while at the same time gasping for air.

But there’s a big difference between remaking an old film for a new audience than there is making a new film for a new audience, should that film embody the past – in this case the B-movie exploitation genre – while bringing something original and worthwhile to the screen. Taking it a step further is Machete, based on the fake trailer of the same name that appeared in Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino’s Grindhouse. Audiences lapped up Danny Trejo as a knife-throwing ultra bad-ass, never expecting the trailer to become truth, and before you know it we’re sitting in the theater waiting for the feature to begin. That, my friends, is dedication and passion. By that accord, Rodriguez earned some major kudos. I mean c’mon, this is the guy that brought you three (soon to be four) Spy Kids films (not to say that’s a bad thing). It’s clear that Rodriguez can pretty much do what he wants, and ends up doing it how he wants to do it.

Machete is most definitely what you expect. Hell, if you saw the Grindhouse trailer, you’ve essentially seen the film (and if you haven’t seen Grindhouse, you may not be in on the joke). Though the full-length feature is toned down in terms of that visual Grindhouse style – gone are the grainy film effects and watermarks used before – Machete is one long tongue-in-cheek camp-fest.

While the film is totally enjoyable and has that right amount of over-the-top silliness, ultimately that’s where the film fails. It’s just too little to spread out over the course of an entire film. The film exists to be unapologetic and exploitative, but sadly this means for a thin storyline with scenes that drag and jokes to fall flat. Again, if you’ve seen the trailer, you know the story, there was no deviation (and most of the trailer footage appears in the film). Machete, a former-federale thought dead, is hired to assassinate a racist Senator(played unremarkably by Robert DeNiro). He’s then double-crossed by his employer and Machete vows revenge, while the film tries to combat the silliness with flimsy messages on immigration and racism.

I’ve been a Danny Trejo fan for years (who hasn’t?) and was excited to see him finally get a leading role. Machete is the perfect vehicle for him to star in, but unfortunately he doesn’t do much as a main man. He is as violent as you would want, skilled and lethal with any weapon (even fashioning his own, like a Mexican MacGyver), and he has plenty of stone-faced one-liners. With such an ensemble cast, each one a vibrant characature, Trejo seemed to blend in with the rest of the cast in the second and third act. There some really great perfomances here, especially from Jeff Fahey, Steven Seagal and Don Johnson. Jessica Alba is once again terrible, and Robert DeNiro looks like a fish out of water, being especially painful to watch in the third act. In a stroke of perfect, art-imitating-life casting, Lindsay Lohan pulls off the most believable role in the film, playing a coke-addicted, sexually-charged young harlot. Lohan gets her fair share of heat, but I honestly enjoyed her in the film.

I’m having a hard time with Machete. On one hand I had a lot of fun, and the film definitely succeeds within the framework it created for itself. On the other hand, it’s just not as good as Grindhouse. It just feels like a spinoff. You can’t quite shake the feeling that it was made to ride on the coat tails of Grindhouse, which was this perfect little isolated experiment a whole three years ago. I acknowledge these shortcomings, and would go as far as saying the film is a facsimile of something better we’ve seen before, but there’s no doubt that I had fun. I’m happy the thing got made, with the people involved, and I’m happy to have seen it. Machete isn’t as awesome as I hoped it would be, nor is it bad by any stretch.

Machete just is.

One Response to “REVIEW: Machete”

1. Dalyn Says:
   September 8th, 2010 at 7:36 am

   Still haven’t seen it, but when I saw the last trailer, it looked to me like Desperado, high on guns, explosions, over the top everything, low on plot. But I really liked Desperado, so no problem there. But after reading this review, I’m afraid it’s going to be more of a Once Upon a Time in Mexico, where what should be a simple, fun movie winds up getting weighed down in too many characters and unnecessary shit. Does anyone even remember anything Banderas did in Once Upon a Time in Mexico? I hardly remember him in that movie at all. Hopefully I’ll get around to Machete this weekend.

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