Machete : Movie Review


In 1993, inspired by his second cousin Danny Trejo's work in Desperado, Robert Rodriguez wrote a screenplay around the character of Machete—a stringy-haired, leather-faced, ex-Federale turned down-and-dirty hitman turned violent crusader on behalf of his fellow illegal immigrants. While Trejo played a different character named Machete in Rodriguez's Spy Kids franchise, the would-be superhero that the director envisioned as a "Mexican Jean-Claude Van Damme or Charles Bronson" was M.I.A. until 2007, when Grindhouse gave Rodriguez and Trejo the opportunity to create a trailer for a Machete film that did not exist—yet.

That trailer, starring Trejo, Jeff Fahey, and Cheech Marin, set up Machete's cover as a day laborer who'd do septic clean-up for $125 a day—and kill a corrupt senator for $150k. Though the story of the would-be film was barely sketched out—in the trailer, Machete is hired by slick operative Fahey to kill an anti-immigration senator, only to be "set up, double-crossed, and left for dead"—his role as the one righteous warrior in a fight with rotten eggs on both sides was implied. "If you're gonna hire Machete to kill the bad guys," intoned the narrator at the end, as Machete mounted a motorbike for a final fight, "you better make damn sure the bad guy isn't you!"

See www.villagevoice.com for full review

Author : Karina Longworth