I considered just posting a quickie in the Expendables thread, since this movie is in a similar vein, but really, Machete deserves better than that. I didn’t see the Expendables – I had less than zero interest in it – but I’m sure I would have hated it. I’ve never really liked any movie those overpaid jocko-homo jerkwads made in the 80s (maybe a Bruce Willis flick here or there), and the addition of the always-annoying Jet Li and some former pro wrestlers didn’t make it any more appealing. Now if they had cast Rowdy Roddy Piper in it, and brought in John Carpenter to direct, we’d be talking.
And that’s the big difference. John Carpenter, bless his soul. Like him, Robert Rodriguez writes em, as well as directs em, and why pay someone else to do the music for your own movies when you can just knock it out yourself with your band on a weekend?
Even comparing casts a Stallone/Lundgren/Rourke hand is pretty weak compared to DeNiro/Steven Segal/Tom Savini/Cheech Marin/Don Johnson/ and hard workin’ B-movie prince Jeff Fahey. And does The Expendables even have a girl in it? Well, we’ve got Jessica Alba, Lindsay Lohan, Michelle Rodriguez, Devon Aoki and the Avellan twins (the “Babysitter Twins” from Grindhouse.)
And over the top? Oh my, in spades. I love some cartoonish movie violence and this is full of it. Lots of loving homages to John Woo, Carpenter, George Romero, Fred Williamson, Melvin Van Peebles, Roger Corman, Russ Meyer… you name it. It’s fast, very funny, and Fahey and Danny Trejo are excellent foes. This was even better than RobRo’s Planet Terror, better still for going political and getting all “current events” and making what may be the first mainstream Mexploitation movie.
Deniro gets shot maybe a couple of times too often. Other than that, kick-ass entertainment. Makes me want to go back and re-watch From Dusk Til Dawn.
Just bloody brilliant, from first minute to last. And Seagal’s death scene must be the best since Paul Reubens in Buffy.
i have nothing to add to chris’s review, except i don’t know how paul reubens died in the buffy movie.
Here is his death — http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QCOzKufIIzs&feature=related — but then he keeps dying for another minute or so during the closing credits.