I’m in the mood for an action movie, something that will keep me awake, said my girlfriend on Sunday afternoon.  And so I put on Machete.   But first I had to explain the back story to her.

Back in 2007, Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino collaborated on a film called Grindhouse.  It was supposed to be like going to the drive-in or a Saturday afternoon at the movies, with two B pictures and some trailers.  Rodriguez did Planet Terror, Tarantino did Death Proof, there were trailers for 4 films that didn’t exist made by them and by their friends, it had a running time of well over 3 hours and almost no one went to see it.  It was considered such a flop that it wasn’t released on home video in the US until just this year – instead the two films within a film were each extended and released separately.  No fake trailers but they probably continued to exist on Youtube.  Me being gonzo, I’ve got a 6 disc Japanese DVD boxed set that features Grindhouse, the two extended films and three discs of bonus features.

At any rate, the Machete trailer was so popular that Rodriguez went and turned it into a feature film, making this to my knowledge the only feature film ever based on a trailer.  And give Rodriguez and his co-writer and co-director some props for coming up with a vaguely coherent final product.  Of course they’re striving to make an over the top B picture and they succeed.

As for the cast, well of course it stars Danny Trejo, the 66 year old former boxer and convict who cleaned up his act and has appeared in more than 200 films and TV shows.  Along for the ride is Robert DeNiro (!), Jeff Fahey, Cheech Marin, Jessica Alba, Michele Rodriguez, Lindsay Lohan (dressed as a gun-toting nun), Steven Seagal, Tom Savini (who knew he was still around?) and introducing Don Johnson (a joke, geddit?).

The thing is, back in the 70s when Roger Corman’s New World Pictures was churning out drive-in fare like The Big Bird Cage and Big Bad Mama and Candy Stripe Nurses, Corman told his directors that he was okay with them inserting a social message into the films as long as there were also enough bare breasts and things blowing up.  Rodriguez takes that and fashions a story about illegal Mexican immigrants in Texas and goes on and on (and on) about how the economy won’t function without them.  He gets carried away with his social message and it makes the 105 minute film seem like 150 minutes.

Then again, Machete does get stabbed and kicked by a voluptuous nude woman, Lindsay Lohan gets naked, Jessica Alba sort of gets naked (with some help from CGI).

And let’s not forget the Avellan twins:

(above image not from the movie though they do play nurses … with guns).

You don’t go see a movie Machete expecting to see a Bergman style philosophical dissertation.  You go to see pretty much what Rodriguez delivers here.  If you like this kind of thing, this is a lot of fun.   I just wish it was 15 or 20 minutes shorter.

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