Back from the Dead with an Unexpectedly Entertaining Third Act
Writer/Director Robert Rodriguez is back with Danny Trejo as Machete,
the ex-CIA, ex-FBI, ex-DEA, ex-federale turned illegal immigrant day laborer
turned outlaw turned ICE agent. The character Machete by definition works
better in two-minute trailers rather than two-hour movies. His main
characteristics are looking like Danny Trejo (best described by one critic as,
“a man who had a staring contest with the sun and won”) never dying and killing
people. He had his start in a fake movie trailer accompanying Rodriguez’s
zombie masterpiece “Planet Terror.” (I’m basically the only one who calls that
movie a masterpiece and am trying to spread the word). Machete is a man of few
words and, given Danny Trejo’s impending old age, works better when he stands
still and glares and less when he actually fights people. In the end, what
makes, “Machete Kills” ultimately worth seeing is a few other characters namely
Michelle Rodriguez’s “She” (pronounced like “Che” of Guevera fame) and the new
bad/crazy guy Mel Gibson. Unfortunately the entrances of these two characters
come in the movie’s third act. Before that the movie slogs a bit in the
territory of so-bad-it’s-bad before ultimately triumphing in a satisfying
so-bad-it’s-good ending.
The badness of the first two acts of “Machete Kills” needs a detour into
an education in the Grindhouse genre in order to fully explain. For those
unacquainted a “Grindhouse” movie are B movies that promise sex and violence
and nothing else. By definition these movies can’t be great in the classic sense
(say ‘Citizen Kane’) but they can succeed, and some succeed spectacularly, in
never being boring. Robert Rodriguez, that very underrated American treasure of
a director, specializes in elevating this type of movie from B-level trash into
high art (Sin City, Planet Terror).
But just because they are not good in the classic sense does not mean that they
automatically find themselves within the so-bad-it’s-good genre. Rodriguez
doesn’t make bad movies per se. He makes good Grindhouse movies. Let’s use some
of Rodriguez’s previous work as the gold standard of this type of movie we can
give some guidelines to further elaborate on this tricky area of cinema.
First the action and plot must move fast. The Grindhouse format is
especially conducive to this in that plot holes are usually present. However in
a good Grindhouse picture the plot hole should resemble a short cut that
propels the story forward faster than it normally would in a regular picture. A
great example is the ‘Missing Reel’ in Planet
Terror that lands the audience in the middle of a battle thereby skipping
the needless part of the enemy actually showing up to the fight. Also given
that the plot does not need to make perfect sense, it might as well be
sensational. “Machete Kills” involves drug cartels in jungle castles and a
nuclear bomb aimed at Washington D.C. That is good so far. Unfortunately
“Machete Kills” clocks in at around two hours. There is too much here and later
I will give an example of what to cut. These movies really should be no more
than 90 minutes.
Second, the action does not have to be realistic but it does have to be
novel. In other words, it doesn’t matter how many people die or how gory it is
just as long as the way they die is surprising and dare I say, clever. This is
basically what makes a great Grindhouse movie fun to watch. The creative love
that is put into the violence evidences something more in the maker than simply
sadism. This detail is also what separates a great Grindhouse movie (like
Raimi’s Evil Dead series) from the
torture porn genre (Saw series). In a
way that makes “Machete Kills” different from “Machete” is that there is a
sizably less amount of cleverness that goes into the action sequences. In
“Machete Kills” there are far too many scenes where opposing forces show up
across open spaces and fire machine guns at each other. By too many scenes I
basically mean more than one. There was only one in “Machete,” and it worked
fantastically by itself. I suspect that because this is a sequel Rodriguez may
have felt that he had to start off where he left off and started with machine
guns instead of going back to the workable formula in “Planet Terror” and
“Machete” of hand-to-hand combat than melee weapons than guns and than finally
a big ass gun battle. “Machete” has good gags (I especially liked how Machete
how defused a bomb in midair while riding it) but went on autopilot a few too
many times.
Third a great Grindhouse movie has to like its women characters. By
“like” I don’t mean that they have to do nice things or dress conservatively.
What I mean is that there has to be more to them than just skimpy clothing and
a bad attitude. Or to put it another way: it has to be a role that the actress
playing it would obviously enjoy playing or at least find challenging in a
professional sense. This is a particularly important guideline given the
immense amount of Grindhouse and horror movies that employ their women
characters to do nothing but scream and die in terrible ways. Rodriguez in
general does well by his actresses, not an easy thing to do given the thin line
he is walking in this genre. (Again take a look at Rose McGowan in “Planet
Terror”). In “Machete Kills” I think he does well by Lady Gaga and Michelle
Rodriguez who have memorable/badass fight scene. He does okay by Amber Heard
who could have had more to do. But one character is not treated well and that
is the sadistic bordello madame played by Sofia Vergara from TV’s Modern Family. She tries to kill Machete
with her Double Ds, a type of machine gun that doubles as a bra (try not to
think about where the ammo comes from). The problem is not the Double Ds. The
problem is that there really is not much to the character besides that. She has
no good lines and is routinely frustrated in not so clever ways in battle.
Rodriguez should have just cut the whole subplot. It didn’t work and without it
the movie would be the correct length.
In the “Machete” series Rodriguez has done something that is not really
necessary according to my made up guidelines but is ultimately interesting to
watch and that is his stunt casting. Rodriguez goes out of his way to employ
actors/actresses who are unemployable due to career ending scandals. In the
first movie he cast Lindsay Lohan (multiple arrests for disorderly conduct) and
Steven Seagall (famously awful actor in terrible movies). In this movie we are
treated to Charlie Sheen as Carlos Esteves (“Winning!”) and Mel Gibson (stuff
I’m not about to write here). Unlike Lindsay and Seagall, Carlos and Mel are
actually good actors and they do remarkably well playing the President of the
United Stated and Crazy Bad Guy named Voz respectively. Truly Rodriguez is a
kindhearted man who is always willing to give the fallen from grace a second
chance to redeem themselves in movies that contain ridiculous amounts of
violence and bad taste.
There must be something to say about Rodriguez’s political
consciousness. It is present in the ‘Machete’ movies even if they are just
throwaway motivations for characters than actual lucid political arguments about
illegal immigration and drug war policy. Still it makes an admirer wonder what
Rodriguez could do if he actually attempted to make a serious movie about these
topics. I’m sure he could do it. I’m also sure he would do it only if he really
really wanted to do it. I can’t think of another director who seems to make
movies purely for his own enjoyment and the enjoyment of his family (an example
is the Spy Kids franchise. Rodriguez
is the only filmmaker I know of that would make a feature length film based on
the story idea of his five-year-old child.) He seems to be completely divorced
from the type of greed that would induce him to make his films more mainstream
or the type of awards acclaim that would make him choose more conventional
subjects for his art. I like this guy a lot.
For those of you with keen eyes you may also spy the Crazy Babysitter
Twins and Rodriguez’s actual doctor (who looks like he’s lost a good deal of
weight). They don’t have much to say in this movie though they were part of the
group of characters taken into space on Crazy Bad Guy’s rocket ship in
anticipation of the next movie. The title of that one is “Machete Kills
Again…IN SPACE.” And yes I am very interested in seeing that as well.
