Machete
15 March 2011. Location: Home
Plot: Machete (Danny Trejo) is a hard-nosed Federal Agent, caught out by his enemies and sold out by his allies. Now he's out for justice, and bloody, red revenge.
Well, the films in my all-time Top 10 had better budge up a little, because there's another one to fit in now. This film is fucking awesome!
As this is a DVD-viewing, I'd normally give it a mini-review over on my Facebook page. But I enjoyed it so much, I'm going to gush about it here instead. If my local cinema had shown this last year, it'd have been a stupidly-close fight for film of the year alongside Kick-Ass. As luck would have it, the local Cineworld is reliably pedestrian for the most part, so this didn't get a look-in (neither did the Tarantino/Rodriguez 2007 Grindhouse outing).
Initially a trailer in the aforementioned pairing of Deathproof and Planet Terror, this has been brought to full, messy, loud, gory, slapstick life by director Robert Rodriguez. Most of the faces in the movie are comfortably familiar; Danny Trejo, Michelle Rodriguez, Cheech Marin, Jessica Alba, Tom Savini, with surprising turns from Don Johnson, Steven Segal and Robert De Niro. Oh, and Lindsay Lohan (I'm not sure why she's there, and while she's not great, at least she's not awful either).
I get the impression that the cast was assembled not by negotiations over fees and credits-placing, but more over the 'want-list' of actors and actresses reading the script and excitedly asking when they could start.
This movie is adrenaline from the word go. This, sadly, is its only let-down: common sense dictates that you can't keep that momentum up for 105 minutes, and that there's got to be some downtime to let the audience breathe and fit in a bit of plot. As the plot is beautifully minimal, you're pretty much stunned into submission in that downtime, so it seems like nothing's really happening. It is, of course, but it's hard to compare with the action sequences.
Not that it matters; the entire ensemble is a fucking joy to watch, here. And Danny Trejo makes me grin like an idiot anyway. This film triumphs on every level that it sets out to, and most importantly: it knows its place.
Enjoy with: Friends & beer, tequila, whiskey, ice.
See if you liked: From Dusk 'Til Dawn, Planet Terror, Deathproof... actually, any of the work by Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez. Oh, and Drive Angry. It's awesome like that, as well.
Yes. 7. It's that awesome.
DISCLAIMERS:
• ^^^ That's dry, British humour, and most likely sarcasm or facetiousness.
• This is a personal blog. The views and opinions expressed here represent my own thoughts (at the time of writing) and not those of the people, institutions or organizations that I may or may not be related with unless stated explicitly.
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