Machete Kills (15.)
Directed by Robert Rodriquez.
Starring Danny Trejo, Michelle Rodriquez, Amber Heard, Mel Gibson, Demian Bichir and Charlie Sheen. 107 mins
The Machete films take the form of a bizarre cult ritual in which groups of talented actors and personalities (this time those named above plus Antonio Banderas, Lady Gaga, Jessica Alba and Cuba Gooding Jr; previously Robert DeNiro, Don Johnson and Lindsay Lohan) prostrate and debase themselves performing wild caricatures around the inert totem pole figure of Danny Trejo.
Quite why Rodriquez continues to flog this action movie parody featuring the pugnacious Latin American garden gnome is anyone’s guess. It was funny as a fake trailer in his Tarantino collaboration Grindhouse but it sags badly over a whole film. A bigger mystery is why I stick with it. I threw away a Friday night on this film even though I already had enough films for this week’s column and didn’t much care for the first one.
It is full of ideas that sound great in theory – Charlie Sheen (listed as Carlos Estevez) playing a US president; Lady Gaga as an assassin - and the Mexican pronunciation of the title, with the CH pronounced as “ch” rather than “sh”, is so enticing. I kept saying MaCHete to myself until I talked myself into seeing it. In fact I’m still saying it writing this.
The film is consistently funny and inventive; I laughed all the way through, but didn’t enjoy a single moment of it. All those great ideas in theory are mostly great in practise but mixing the character depth of Airplane! with the body count of Rambo is a wearing combination and this obsession with refining films down into only their “cool” elements is ultimately spirit crushing and joyless. And it still will be when I go and see Machete Kills Again In Space.
Directed by Robert Rodriquez.
Starring Danny Trejo, Michelle Rodriquez, Amber Heard, Mel Gibson, Demian Bichir and Charlie Sheen. 107 mins
The Machete films take the form of a bizarre cult ritual in which groups of talented actors and personalities (this time those named above plus Antonio Banderas, Lady Gaga, Jessica Alba and Cuba Gooding Jr; previously Robert DeNiro, Don Johnson and Lindsay Lohan) prostrate and debase themselves performing wild caricatures around the inert totem pole figure of Danny Trejo.
Quite why Rodriquez continues to flog this action movie parody featuring the pugnacious Latin American garden gnome is anyone’s guess. It was funny as a fake trailer in his Tarantino collaboration Grindhouse but it sags badly over a whole film. A bigger mystery is why I stick with it. I threw away a Friday night on this film even though I already had enough films for this week’s column and didn’t much care for the first one.
It is full of ideas that sound great in theory – Charlie Sheen (listed as Carlos Estevez) playing a US president; Lady Gaga as an assassin - and the Mexican pronunciation of the title, with the CH pronounced as “ch” rather than “sh”, is so enticing. I kept saying MaCHete to myself until I talked myself into seeing it. In fact I’m still saying it writing this.
The film is consistently funny and inventive; I laughed all the way through, but didn’t enjoy a single moment of it. All those great ideas in theory are mostly great in practise but mixing the character depth of Airplane! with the body count of Rambo is a wearing combination and this obsession with refining films down into only their “cool” elements is ultimately spirit crushing and joyless. And it still will be when I go and see Machete Kills Again In Space.
