In the great economy debate, capitalism has other points in its favor beyond locking us all into soul-withering jobs from which the only escape is to look at kitties on the Internet.
-- Local show times, theaters, trailer.
Consider the Insane Clown Posse. In this land of liberty, two bozos from Detroit were able to make millions of dollars by dressing up as clowns, rapping about killing everyone through clown-related methods (poison seltzer and exploding pies?), and inventing a mythology about the "Dark Carnival" that's more convoluted than your 13-year-old son's explanation of what he was doing in that bathroom for the last 90 minutes.
I feel like that's a beautiful thing. A thing we'd lose forever if America's crypto-communist left had its way. At least when some future civilization reads our nation's eulogy, they'll learn of the cultural wonderland that produced ICP and Machete, the movie developed from a two-minute trailer.
After Mexican federal agent Danny Trejo is left for dead by cartel kingpin Steven Seagal, he ends up as an anonymous day laborer in Texas. Impressed by his fighting skills, Jeff Fahey hires him to assassinate Robert De Niro, a U.S. Senator running on an extreme anti-immigration platform.
But Trejo is betrayed and framed during the hit. With both the law and Fahey's goons hunting him down, Trejo must clear his name by exposing a conspiracy that respects no border.
Machete was originally just a fake trailer from Grindhouse. That it became a movie of its own is as unlikely and delightful as waking up with a roof over me instead of an angry farmer. Even if Machete had sucked like a house full of suck, its realization would have been a win for the forces of fun everywhere.
And with Robert Rodriguez as co-writer and co-director, its chances of outright terribility weren't high.
In fact, it turns out it's kinda great, in a qualified way. Picking up stylistically where Grindhouse left off, Machete is pulpy, propulsive, and bloodier than a mosquito's urinal. On a moment by moment basis, it's very entertaining.
It doesn't hang together so well as a full movie. A partial culprit is the expansive and strange cast. Along with Trejo and Seagal, who make an awesome and unlikely lead and villain, you've got Jessica Alba, Michelle Rodriguez, Don Johnson, Cheech Marin, and semi-naked Lindsay Lohan.
There are more payoffs than duds, but I wonder if Robert Rodriguez felt compelled to justify their star presence, i.e. giving Lohan a larger role than "girl whose hair is strategically and frustratingly draped over her nipples except in that one scene where she probably has a body double and that half-second in another scene." (Don't judge. Like you weren't keeping track, too.) With so many competing subplots and characters, Machete can be sprawling and loose.
Still, this is a brainy movie, and not just in the sense that brains regularly spray hither and yon. Rodriguez and co-director Ethan Maniquis invent all kinds of absurd forms of action violence, such as like puppeteer-controlling a guy with the machete stuck through his back, while simultaneously assaulting the immigration debate with an array of exaggeration, brutality, one-liners and political philosophy. Oh yeah, and laborer Trejo slaughtering people with weed-whackers and pruning shears.
Though that's not going to solve any debate beyond what's the best border-based pun, it adds a Roger Corman-like satire to the B-movie excess and excitement. Machete could have taken its titular weapon to its overgrown plot (now that's good writing!), but if it's a little bloated, that just means we get more time to watch Trejo chop people's parts off.
Grade: B
