Movie Review: Machete Kills (2013)

When Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez made Grindhouse in 2007, they linked the two movies within it with 70’s style adverts for fake exploitation B-movies.  One of these was Machete, which proved so popular that Robert Rodriguez ended up making the film in 2010.  Now, Machete returns once again in Machete Kills…

If you’ve seen any of Rodriguez’s films, (with the exception of the Spy Kids franchise I would imagine!), you’d know that he is a fan of the low budget B-movie aesthetic, especially when set in Mexico and around the US border.  From El Mariachi, Roadracers, Desperado, From Dusk Til Dawn, and Once Upon a Time in Mexico, you can see this being evident, but after Grindhouse, where he really began to play with the genre, in Machete and now Machete Kills, he is really immersing himself in that style.

The plot is, as you would expect, is quite silly, but that is in keeping with the genre.  A crazed revolutionary in Mexico, ‘Mendez’ (Demian Bichir), is threatening to launch a missile at the United States and ‘Machete’ (Danny Trejo) is recruited by the President (Charlie Sheen, billed under his real name of Carlos Estevez!) to hunt down and kill ‘Mendez’.  Although that is the basic premise, it is merely a jumping off point for various strange twists and ludicrous turns that you would expect from a B-movie. Pulling in elements from Kung-fu movies and James Bond films, it all ends up feeling a bit like Rambo meets Moonraker.

Clearly having fun with style and setup, Rodriguez has let this film become more scatter-shot than 2010’s Machete and it isn’t as focused or refined as that first installment.  To a certain degree, this isn’t a problem if you go with it and allow him to play with the genre and enjoy the nods to various movies and bring some extra stupid elements.  From, once again, adding a film trailer at the start to the casting, he is very much enjoying the freedom to explore the world of B-movies.

With Rodriguez on this charge through the genre is a large cast of well-known guest stars, such as Amber Heard, Michelle Rodriguez, William Sadler, Lady Gaga, Walton Goggins, Cuba Gooding Jr, Jessica Alba, Antonio Banderas, Vanessa Hudgens, Alexa Vega, Sofia Vergara, Tom Savini and even Mel Gibson.  Some of these performances are quite hammy, but generally it is in keeping with the material and effective for the genre. None of them stand out as bad in any way and I’m sure some of the actors relished being able to go over the top!

While the film does play with the genre a lot and is amusing doing so, overall it might have been better to have shaved a few minutes off the running time and had a little more focus, as there are sections of the plot which do drag a bit.  It probably only needs 10 or so minutes taking off, but it would just get rid of those parts that got a bit dull.  In addition to removing those 10 minutes, there are some sequences that are just a little embarrassing, and could do with looking at again. Mostly, these are the Sofia Vergara scenes with her weapons, which isn’t her fault and the film could be less crass.

If you like the grindhouse experience, you could do a lot worse than spend your time with Machete Kills, which although not a great winner of a film, still has some laughs for fans of Troma style stupid gore and silly B-movie action films.

 

 

 

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