Film Review: ‘Machete’

RATING

One of the highlights from Grindhouse, the Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino double feature, was the original trailer for a fake “Mexploitation” movie starring Rodriguez’s cousin Danny Trejo as a bad ass vigilante fighting against corruption with his namesake weapon of choice. Unfortunately, the feature length version of Machete fails to live up to all the fun of the original fake trailer.

Machete should have been much more enjoyable and fun, instead we get a film packed with way too much plot and so many uninteresting side characters it’s hard to differentiate them all. They’re just too many elements that are needlessly shoehorned into this film without serving the experience in the slightest. Trejo’s craggy face says it all, but for a movie called Machete, Machete is not in the film nearly as much as he should be. The experience winds up feeling like a funny 5 minute Saturday Night Live sketch extended into feature length movie. Beyond the kick ass beginning, the movie loses momentum and the joke stops being funny with over an hour left to beat the punchline to death.

I suppose there’s some curiosity out there as to how Lindsay Lohan fared in all of this, and for those of you who are into the whole ‘naked crack whore’ aesthetic, you’ll be happy to know she spends most of the film in the buff. Other than that, her character could have been completely excised and her performance is devoid of anything resembling charisma. As for Jessica Alba I couldn’t tell whether her acting was bad on purpose or if she was just affecting an amateurish ‘B-movie’ vibe in order to fit into the whole ‘grindhouse style’. Whatever the reason, she falls flat as a tortilla compared to the deadly serious Trejo.

Jeff Fahey (Planet Terror) reprising his evil boss role from the trailer does a great job being  all ‘ultra evil’ for the sake of being ‘ultra evil’ and Don Johnson’s portrayal of a racist vigilante is decidedly un-Crockett-esque. However, he definitely gets it and does well with what he is given. Steven Seagal does a satisfying job as the big baddie but is kind of superfluous while Robert De Niro jams on a bad Texas accent, hamming it up to the hilt as a corrupt state senator. As previously stated, there ‘s such a glut of side characters it’s impossible to invest any measure of ‘give-a-shit-ness’ to any of em’. Unfortunately, it’s Trejo – who shines in any scene where he is kicking ass and not talking – who is badly served by the rambling script and expansive cast.

Machete was just not enough consistent fun to justify itself or its hefty running time. It is bloated and messy with a convoluted plot and out of synch pacing which doesn’t allow for enough of the mindless action the genre demands. Moreover, too much stunt casting gets in the way of the characters we like. At 105 minutes, it feels  about 20 minutes too long, and the immigration theme is battered into the plot with about as much finesse as a mighty clop to the gonads. A lot of lame, stereotypical gags add an awkward feel to the mix, which only further drives this car off the rails.

Piranha 3D was far more successful satirizing/paying homage to the b-movie genre. Rodriguez’s own Planet Terror is also a much better effort in that regard, with its over the top theatrics and thin plot. Sadly, Machete does not live up to the promise of the original fake trailer. It becomes another cheesy action movie instead of subverting itself in order to exploit genre –  filmmaking for fun thrills and cheap laughs. All the elements were there but ultimately, it just doesn’t deliver.

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Rick Chung is a twentysomething broadcast journalist, online arts and entertainment vulture, funky music loving concert goer, and social media enthusiast with a fondness for all things pop culture. Check out his Blog, entitled simply rickchung.com, what else?