Having revisited Grindhouse relatively recently, I was reminded that the creative director behind the double feature project, Robert Rodriguez, made a few movies to follow it up. The humorous trailer for Machete, about a blade-wielding badass assassin played by Danny Trejo was included in the initial theatrical showing of Grindhouse and included on the double-feature Blu-ray—which is the best way to experience it outside a theater. Other joke trailers were part of the experience, which may not ever get made, but Machete was the one that looked like there was already a movie in the works. For one reason or another, I missed Machete when it came out and have only gotten around to seeing it for the first time recently.

Pros

• Over-the-top action and gore effects

• Lots of T & A

• Some hilarious one-liners from Rodriguez favorites Danny Trejo and Cheech Marin

• The best movie for Steven Seagal to do his signature “acting” style

Cons

• Could have used more of the exploitation charm from Planet Terror

• Jessica Alba, even in an intentionally “bad” movie, is still bad

• Confusing Lohan nun sequence at the end

Plot & Thoughts

After a botched rescue operation in Mexico leaves the titular hero Machete (Danny Trejo) wounded, widowed, and left with nothing, he finds himself working as a day laborer in a town in Texas. His life does not remain dull for long as a mysterious white man (Jeff Fahey) hires him to assassinate the state’s outspoken senator McLaughlin (Robert De Niro), who is running for re-election. McLaughlin is so anti-immigration that he goes out at night with racist vigilantes, led by a man called Von (Don Johnson), and shoots random immigrants attempting to cross the Mexican border. Machete accepts the job for cash but soon learns that he’s just the fall guy in the scheme and has to go on the run before regrouping and getting his revenge.

The original trailer for Machete sums everything up just fine and should be able to help you determine whether or not the movie is for you, but I’ll do my best to describe why I enjoyed it. First of all, I’m a little biased in favor of something directed by Robert Rodriguez. From Dusk Till Dawn and Desperado are two of my favorite action films from the 1990s that he directed and are great examples of how his taste and talent as a creative allowed him to make entertaining films that balance action with their own self-awareness. He has a pretty distinct style that comes through in his films in a way that, even if you didn’t know he directed it when you mention the name, it’s not much of a surprise. I haven’t seen everything Rodriguez has directed, but what I have seen has thoroughly entertained me for one reason or another. Machete is essentially more of the Rodriguez flair that I love.

Machete is ridiculous and fun from start to finish. The gore, though, not quite as crazy as Planet Terror’s, is still over the top and fantastical. People get their heads smashed and stabbed with all sorts of blades, and the way Machete escapes an assault in a hospital is both gross and memorable. During the slower sections of the film, there are still plenty of moments where the intentional cheesiness or tongue-in-cheek humor comes through about a blade-wielding super assassin named Machete who decapitates bad guys and hooks up with all the ladies. Cheech Marin, who often appears in Rodriguez films, is given some great lines as the gunslinger priest brother of Machete, including: “I absolve you of all your sins. Now, get the fuck out.”

I could just go through the movie, scene by scene, explaining why I enjoy it, but it’s better just to sum it up as a movie that delivers on what you expect of it. If you watch the trailer, you know immediately what you’re getting. The only places I can really criticize it are in the performance of Jessica Alba who still manages to be a charisma black-hole in a movie as self-aware and stupid as this. I also noticed how Machete is missing some of those intentional errors Rodriguez used in Planet Terror as part of the Grindhouse experience. Having some missing scenes, rough jump cuts, more film grain, audio that is slightly off, or other little traits that were put into Planet Terror would have really added to the experience. I still think Machete is a movie that belongs as part of the Grindhouse double-feature experience more than Deathproof, and I might just be asking too much by wishing that were the case by imposing my tastes upon the film, but it’s really just a nitpick anyway. I know that the next time I watch Grindhouse, I’ll watch the whole thing up to Deathproof, skip to the car chase, then put in my copy of Machete to get my modern exploitation-film fix.

TL;DR

Machete is as gory, absurd, and fun as the trailer suggests it is. There is no high-brow entertainment here. It’s raunchy, raw, and ridiculous. There are some great one-liners scattered throughout the film and over-the-top action to make everything fit together. I’d dare even say that this is probably the best movie to have Steven Seagal in because you’re already not meant to take anything seriously. It’s a shame that most movies from the past ten years have managed to be dumber and less entertaining than Machete without trying.