Movie Review: Once Upon A Time In Mexico (2003)

Robert Rodriguez concludes his El Mariachi trilogy, but bloat creeps in and the fun factor suffers at the hands of too many characters vying for space in a convoluted plot. Rodriguez is unable to follow in the footsteps of Sergio Leone's "dollars trilogy" and make the jump from enjoyable camp to delicious epic. Once Upon A Time In Mexico aims for grand elements, but never comes close to scaling the necessary heights.

El Mariachi (Antonio Banderas) is recruited by CIA Agent Sands (Johnny Depp) to assassinate the vicious General Marquez, who is conspiring with drug lord Barillo (Willem Dafoe) to overthrow the Mexican President. El Mariachi is eager to gain revenge on Marquez, who brutally killed his wife Carolina (Salma Hayek, seen only in flashback) and young daughter. Rattling around the thick edges of the plot are Billy Chambers (Mickey Rourke), who hangs around Barillo's compound; anti-narcotics agent Ajedrez (Eva Lopez); former FBI Agent Ramirez (Ruben Blades), and local thug leader Cucuy (Danny Trejo). Several of these characters will switch allegiances as the plot against the president progresses. And that is not all: Cheech Marin in the local informant helping Sands; the President has a double-crossing advisor; Barillo is planning face-changing plastic surgery; and El Mariachi once again calls on two heavily armed friends, Lorenzo and Fideo, who show up to join the action.

It is a rare for a movie to suffer from being too short, but Once Upon A Time In Mexico, at just over 100 minutes, simply isn't hefty enough to carry everything that is trying to happen within it. Characters are introduced in a hurry or hardly at all, events seem rushed, motivations are barely sketched in, and with so many characters vying to tell their tale, the action sequences now actually get in the way.

Johnny Depp manages to stand out as the conniving Agent Sands, but only by going so far over the top, and having his character meet such a gruesome destiny, that he forcefully etches himself into the memory. Banderas seems disengaged, and most of the other actors have too little screen time to make a lasting impression.

Once Upon A Time In Mexico offers a few moments of enjoyment, but the underground feel and wild abandonment of the earlier El Mariachi movies is gone, replaced by plot congestion caused by character cramming.

All Ace Black Blog Movie Reviews are here.

Movie Review: Desperado (1995)

All style and limited substance, but when the style is this flashy, a lot can be forgiven. Desperado is the first major Robert Rodriguez production, and it helped to propel the careers of both Antonio Banderas and Salma Hayek. And it doesn't hurt that Quentin Tarantino contributes an unforgettable 10 minutes to add a further injection of irreverence.

The story, a sequel to Rodriguez's El Mariachi, is the most standard revenge fare. Buscemi (Steve Buscemi, as unsettling as ever) enters a filthy bar in a small Mexican town and spins a tall tale about a heavily armed stranger on a mass-killing spree, looking for a certain gang lord called Bucho. The bar is indeed a front for Bucho's business, and the bartender (Cheech Marin) and all the supposed customers are Bucho's men.

The stranger is El Mariachi (Banderas), Buscemi's friend, and he is on a single-minded mission to kill Bucho (Joaquim de Almeida), as revenge for Bucho having killed his girlfriend. El Mariachi arrives at the bar, and using the arsenal of heavy weaponry he keeps hidden in a guitar case, kills everyone in it after an ultra intense firefight. He then survives an assassination attempt by the mysterious knife-throwing Navajas (Danny Trejo) -- Buscemi is not so fortunate. El Mariachi hooks up with Carolina (Hayek), who runs a library in a town where no one reads: the library is another front for Bucho's business. After several more encounters with Bucho's men, one featuring two El Mariachi friends who also use ridiculous guitar-disguised firepower, Bucho's loyalists are annihilated and a final confrontation unfolds.

Faithful to the philosophy of never using one bullet when 20 are available, Rodriguez fills the screen with dead bodies, literally piled up at the end of every battle scene. Cleaners are brought in to mop up the rivers of blood soaking into the Mexican soil after El Mariachi is done perforating his opponents with an army's worth of ammunition. Entire wars have been fought with less firepower than is on display in Desperado.

Banderas plays his role seriously, and gets away with it, his intensity matching the action even if the revenge motivation is too flimsy to carry the amount of bloodshed. Hayek brings a sultry victimized presence to her role as Carolina, not straying too far from the eye-candy specifications but fitting perfectly into the exaggerated mayhem. Cheech Marin is quietly hilarious as the bartender, conveying emotion with a combination of eyebrow movements, burps, and undisguised glances of contemptible disgust.

Desperado is all very much tongue in cheek, never more so than when Tarantino shows up at the bar and unspools a long-winded and totally irrelevant story about a man making a bet related to long-distance pissing into a beer glass. The story is as meaningless as the film, and as ridiculously enjoyable.



All Ace Black Blog Movie Reviews are here.
    

Movie Review: From Dusk Till Dawn (1996)

An exercise in stylishly meaningless blood-letting, From Dusk Till Dawn just wants to have fun.  Director Robert Rodriguez delivers an enjoyably gory package, while stars George Clooney and Quentin Tarantino are captivating as they play their over-the-top roles appropriately straight.

Brutal criminal Seth Gecko (Clooney) and his psychotic sex-offender brother Richie (Tarantino) have just violently robbed a Texas bank and are holding hostages as they make a run to Mexico. At a grocery store near the border, Richie kills a local lawman, and in the ensuing shootout, the brothers also shoot and kill the store clerk, but not before Richie is wounded with a bullet through his palm. In the chaos, all their hostages flee except for an elderly bank clerk; Richie kills her anyway when the brothers take refuge in a seedy motel.

Seth kidnaps a vacationing family consisting of pastor Jacob (Harvey Keitel) and his two teenage children, Scott and Kate (Juliette Lewis). The group crosses into Mexico, where Seth has arranged a dawn rendezvous with local crimelord Carlos (Cheech Marin). Seth and Richie force their hostages to settle in for a night of drinking at the Titty Twister strip joint, a rough, isolated biker and trucker hangout. But when the sun goes down, most of the staff, dancers and regulars at the Titty Twister transform into ugly, vicious vampires, intent on devouring the human customers. Seth and Richie need the help of their hostages as well as other colourful customers, including Sex Machine (Tom Savini) and Vietnam War veteran Frost (Fred Williamson), to fight back and survive the night.

Once the vampires take over From Dusk Till Dawn, the movie does not pretend to be anything more than a hyperkinetic blood-soaked comedy of catroon-level violence. Tarantino's screenplay delivers the laughs as Clooney and company fend-off endless hordes of blood-suckers, finding a never ending stream of tools to try and prevent the vampires from having their dinner.

Despite the orgy of violence, Tarantino finds time in the script to give Seth some humanity: Seth blames himself for Richie turning into a sick psychopath. And if there is a message among the bloodied and mangled bodyparts, it is that even individuals as messed up as Seth and Richie will encounter more horrible creatures at some point in their life.

Supporting Clooney and Tarantino is an entertaining cast that adds to the merriment. It's a treat to find Williamson, a veteran of 1970s cheapo exploitation movies, as an unexpected ally in the long battle at the cantina. Cheech Marin plays three manic roles, as a border guard, a greeter at the Titty Twister, and as Carlos. Salma Hayek shows up briefly but memorably as the awesome Satanico Pandemonium, the club's star performer. And Harvey Keitel brings a comically false solemness to the proceedings as a pastor questioning his calling after the death of his wife.

Thanks to the talent on both sides of the camera, From Dusk Till Dawn is much more entertaining than an ultimately pointless movie has any right to be.

All Ace Black Movie Reviews are here.