By Anthony D’Alessandro
HollywoodNews.com: FILM REVIEW — If there was a classroom full of action directors, such as Michael Bay, Gore Verbinski and McG, Robert Rodriguez would be that rascal who would take them hostage, rap their knuckles with a ruler and stick their noses in a corner.
What would Rodriguez inculcate? How to make an efficient, hyper-kinetic edited, voluptuous action film, employing the most zealous dramatic ensemble.
To fault Rodriguez for his campy, snuff-inspired shoot-em ups would be like shortchanging John Woo’s talents for executing chopsocky ballet or Martin Scorsese’s overindulgence in Italian-Catholic symbolism.
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Much like those guys whose cinema is beholden to their heritage, Rodriguez’s actioners, like a rich Sopaipilla drowned in honey, are drenched in sexy melodrama, exploitative action and South of the Border mythos.
So comes his Mexican Rambo film “Machete,” which he co-directed with his rhythmic editor Ethan Maniquis from “Grindhouse.” And while “Machete” is arguably the best action film of the summer, sniping “Salt” in its twists and kicking Adam McKay’s “The Other Guys” in the cajones with its comedy, the film wears its pro-Mexican Immigration message heavily on its sleeve — a bold agenda that is apt to divide action aficionados at the box office: Red state testosterones are apt to walk out while blue state arthouse crowds will savor the ride.
While the knife-wielding ex-Mexican Federale “Machete” is more or less a cinematic cousin to Rodriguez’s “Mariachi” and “Desperado” protag assassins (in fact Rodriguez originally conceived the character during the shoot of the latter film, not the “Grindhouse” faux trailer), it’s the film’s overt political soap box which makes “Machete” a more intelligible ride than its steel barrel predecessors. Sylvester Stallone’s pro-America speech at the end of “Rambo” seems mousy next to the social message which Rodriguez and Maniquis drum about U.S.-Mexico border corruption. The duo play out the drama effectively down to the final moment when Machete (the fierce, somber Danny Trejo) is pulled over by Jessica Alba’s ICE agent Sartana: Instead of handing her his papers, Sartana gives Machete a set of his own.
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After watching his wife get beheaded by the drug lord Torrez (a hammy Steven Seagal) in an ambush sting, master of knives Machete retreats to Austin, Texas where he gets by as a day laborer. He is befriended [...]
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