Machete

The best thing to come out of Quentin Tarantino's Grindhouse project was undoubtedly the 'fake' trailer for Machete - a homage to the exploitative action films of the 70s that came across both a parody and an awesome antidote to the neutered action films we get today. Responding to fan reaction, director Robert Rodriguez did what should've been done years ago and cast ex-con turned actor Danny Trejo as the lead in a B-movie spectacular. The result is one helluva fun action film replete with rapid fire vomiting, decapitations, steamy sex scenes and explosive gunshot wounds. Basically, it's everything we've been missing from mainstream films since the beginning of the 1990s.

Machete (Trejo) is a Mexican cop with a penchant for knife work. We watch in the film's prologue as his wife is brutally killed by Mexican druglord Torrez (Steven Seagal) and then cut to three years later where Machete is now an illegal immigrant reduced to begging for work on the American-Mexican border. Down on his luck and plum out of money, Machete is forced to take work as a gun-for-hire by shady businesman Michael Booth (Jeff Fahey), and is promptly sent out to assassinate a local senator (Robert De Niro). It soon transpires that Machete has been set up though, and he gets shot by another sniper before he can carry out the job. Recovering from his wounds and enlisting the help of a sexy immigration official (Jessica Alba) and a gunshot-wielding priest (Cheech Marin), Machete goes on the warpath to exact revenge on the cartel of men who left him for dead.

Sure, it's deliberately cheesy and has a relatively straightforward plot, but Machete gets the tone completely right. There's just enough B-gradeness and over-the-top coolness to keep the viewer more than entertained. It's not too self-knowing or postmodern but it also doesn't go too far in the opposite direction by trying to conform to modern storytelling conventions or formulas. What I'm trying to say is that it doesn't sacrifice anything in the name of it's 'grindhouse' tag that would make it a boring film. I was initially worried that Rodriguez wouldn't be able to sustain the kickarse feel of the trailer for an entire movie, but I think he succeeds admirably. Machete is unusual in that it's a film that has been built around it's trailer, rather than the other way around. You can actually spot some of the shots from the trailer and the ways in which the film has been written to fit them in... I don't think it detracts from the film and I don't think it's neccessarily a bad way to write this kind of movie.

Rodriguez doesn't just make a grindhouse film either. There's a Mexican immigration subtext that is obviously close to Rodriguez's heart, and a lot of the film points towards the failure of the American legal system as the main cause for the injustice that surrounds the American-Mexican border. Some people might see this as too lofty a theme for such an apparently disposable genre but I see it as extension of why film fans have been reacting so favourably to this new wave of grindhouse films. Films like Machete (and also the films of Quentin Tarantino) can be seen as a reaction against the growing conservatism of action films... the growth of the modern action film into the cash-pinnacle of mainstream filmmaking has seen the genre evolve into something that's completely free of nudity, shows minimal actual bloodshed, and concerns heroes that are so straight-lacked and bound by strict filmic honour codes that they can only kill people in certain situations. These are usually situations that require the script to twist itself into the most contrived shapes possible, leading to a severe lack of quality in writing, direction and acting. Most of all, the spectacle of these films have been reduced to explosions and special effects. I'm not saying that the brutal violence in Machete is neccessarily a godsend, but it's definitely the result of the blind alley that Hollywood action films have crawled up into in recent years, and Machete's anti-American subtext is a reasonable reflection of the narrowmindedness of these films.

My only major criticism of Machete is that it doesn't end in the orgy of blood and severed limbs it should have... it kind of loses a little steam at the end (mainly due to Seagal's weirdness), but I think it's forgiveable as the film still manages to be consistently entertaining for it's entire duraction. Danny Trejo's stoic performance evokes the spirit of Charles Bronson, he's so cool that he even fights a guy whilst casually eating a sandwich. The collection of villains that he has to take down are great too - Jeff Fahey gives an oily and oedipal performance as the Senator's main stooge, Don Johnson makes for a great redneck sheriff, De Niro downplays his inner toughguy to highlight the duplicity of his faux-Texan politician character, and Steven Seagal is (initially) impressive as a badass Mexican crimelord with a samurai sword. Seagal's acting in particular needs to be seen to be believed... I really just don't know what planet this guy is on, his last scene is ego-tinged to the point of outright weirdness, but at least he's not boring.

HIGHLIGHTS: I loved the bit where Machete is randomly told an interesting fact about the length of the human intestine and then puts it to use in the next fight scene (!)

DIRECTOR: Robert Rodriguez
WRITER/SOURCE: Written by Robert and Alvaro Rodriguez
KEY ACTORS: Danny Trejo, Robert De Niro, Jessica Alba, Michelle Rodriguez, Jeff Fahey, Don Johnson, Steven Seagal, Lindsay Lohan, Cheech Marin, Tom Savini

RELATED TEXTS:
- As mentioned, Machete started life as a 'fake' trailer that was screened as part of the Grindhouse double-bill. This was a film project masterminded by Quentin Tarantino to kickstart a new wave of exploitation films, and consisted of Rodriguez's fun zombie film Planet Terror and Tarantino's somewhat boring action thriller Death Proof.
- The other fake trailers were for the films Werewolf Women of the SS (by Rob Zombie), Don't (by Edgar Wright) and Thanksgiving (by Eli Roth).
- An extra fake trailer was included in some Canadian screenings of Grindhouse, this was Hobo With a Shotgun by director Jason Eisener. Like Machete this has since been expanded into a feature-length film, and is set for release mid-2011.
- Machete is supposedly the first in a trilogy of films that will be rounded out by Machete Kills and Machete Kills Again. I'm not sure whether to seriously expect these films to be made or not, it would be great if they were though.
- Rodriguez was partially inspired to make Machete by the John Woo Hong Kong films Hard-Boiled and The Killer.
- Trejo and Rodriguez first worked together on the Mexican action film Desperado.