Finally, Machete!

Movie Reviewed: Machete

Director: Robert Rodriguez and Ethan Maniquis

Date Watched: 14 September 2021

jamesintexas rating: **1/2

Machete is not a good movie, but it is really fun and really having fun. Rodriguez's camera work revels in the marvel of Danny Trejo's quiet, formidable menace, and the first ten minutes is completely gripping in its violence and energy. The plotting and storytelling runs out of steam, and the stunt-casting of so many recognizable faces slows it all down a bit, but there are so many wonderfully silly moments. This film's creation is a triumph, coming from the Grindhouse Trailer as a 90 second fantasy, and Rodriguez stamps the film with his own unique and silly vision. Did I mention how silly it is? Or how glad I am that Machete is in the world?

After a truly brutal origin story in Mexico, Danny Trejo's Machete is an ex-Federale caught up in a web spun by Jeff Fahey to shoot State Senator Robert De Niro, a vocal proto-Trump politician. When the plan goes awry through a double cross, Machete must seek out allies like taco truck owner and resistance leader Michelle Rodriguez, evade capture from an ICE agent Jessica Alba, and even his estranged brother Padre Cheech Marin. Trejo is always winning in this role, proving fully capable of all the fighting and snarling, delivering lines like "Machete don't text" with steely aplomb. The film's imagination extends to its fight scenes and scenery chewing, especially from Don Johnson as a white supremacist vigilante leader and Cheech. It suffers, a bit, from not having Trejo on screen as much as he could be, but maybe that was by design? I mean, when you've got Jeff Fahey, Robert De Niro, Lindsay Lohan, Cheech Marin, Michelle Rodriguez, Jessica Alba, and Shea Whigham, it is hard to share the screen time. 

Machete is never not fun, and Rodriguez has crafted an ode to Danny Trejo, silly movie-making, and taking shots at our country's deep hypocrisy with immigration and labor. Completely ridiculous in a wonderful way.