Before we get started, let me tell you about the other three movies I’ve walked out of in my life:
1. Freddy Got Fingered. I don’t really want to get into it, but to be honest I only left because most of the other people I was with were leaving. The only one who wanted to stay was the German foreign exchange student, and it’s a scary day when you start having more in common with weird Germans than your classmates.
2. Miami Vice. What a piece of shit. All I can remember is that they drive a boat to Cuba for mojitos for no reason. I sort of blame this movie for the popularity of mojitos. Also, how do you show Jamie Fox’s ass seven times and show no female nudity even though there’s a nude woman in the shower with Jamie? And yes, I know that Jamie Fox spells his name with two X’s on the end, and I know he was Ray, but let’s not forget that before that he was in a movie where a fighter jet came to life and after Ray he was in a movie where he was a retarded homeless cello virtuoso. He’s still a one X actor in my book.
3. Get Smart. Just meh. Also, I thought we were watching the finale when we were really watching the lead-up to the finale. I couldn’t face more, emotionally.
And then 4, Machete.
For those of you who don’t know, Machete is the newest movie by Robert Rodriguez after his success with Planet Terror, Once Upon a Time in Mexico, and Desperado. Oh, and Spy Kids. And Sharkboy and Lavagirl. And Spy Kids 2. And Shorts.
Machete was sold to us originally as one of the many fake trailers that showed before the two features in Grindhouse. Let me explain for those who didn’t see Grindhouse, which was everybody: Grindhouse was a double-feature, one movie directed by Robert Rodriguez, one by Quentin Tarantino. This movie-going experience was enhanced by fake trailers that ran before the first movie and between the first and the second. These were trailers for movies never made, and featured real directors such as Eli Roth and Rob Zombie. One of these trailers was for Machete, basically a blaxsploitation film, but with Mexicans. The trailer was comical. Danny Trejo, who is something like 70, riding a motorcycle with a gatling gun on the front, making out with the bad guy’s topless wife and daughter, Cheech Marin making a cameo as a shotgun-wielding priest. As the trailers go, it was one of the standouts.
It turns out, however, that this idea has been kicking around in Rodriguez’s head since the early 90’s, since the Desperado days. He planned to make the trailer, which got expanded to being released on DVD along with Planet Terror, his Grindhouse feature. Then, because the reaction was so positive, he decided to go whole hog and release a feature, give it the real Spy Kids treatment.
Here is the trailer. It should be noted that this was run hard before Predators and The Expendables, two self-aware, unapologetic action movies:
Now, this appears for all intents and purposes to be an all-out action spectacular, yes?
Well, get ready to be seriously fucking disappointed.
If you made a pie chart about the various themes this movie followed, it could be divided into two pieces, one being the cartoonish violence we were all sold, the other being about how Mexican immigrants get fucked by The Man. And the slice about that second part is a hell of a lot bigger and a hell of a lot less tasty.
Just so there’s no mistaking my politics, I’m not a big immigration reform person or anything like that. If I were born Pedro and lived in Oaxaca and made no money, I sure as hell would come over here too. I don’t really think that Mexicans are somehow destabilizing our way of life any more than gays are destabilizing our marriages.
So with that out of the way, let me discuss the clumsy and overdrawn discussion of race relations as put forth by Robert Rodriguez:
Mexican Characters:
Machete: wronged policeman, good guy forced to do bad things.
Taco Lady: Sells tacos, also leads some underground revolution.
Immigration Lady: Mexican, hardassed but also not insensitive to the plight of her people. This would be a key role here except for the fact that it’s played by Jessica Alba who couldn’t act her way out of a paper bag constructed of Maxim magazine pages.
Cheech: Priest, former cop.
Now, let’s take a look at the white people:
Lindsay Lohan: Coke whore. In the movie.
Robert Deniro: Politician running on a stance that immigrants should build a wall with no pay and be thrown back into Mexico, a premise that is presented as a reality yet is based on a 15 year0ld George Lopez joke.
Beard-O: Bad asshole, wants to bang his own daughter.
You get the idea. Every whitey is obsessed with the idea that Mexicans are ruining their country. And every white person calls Mexicans “Nacho” or “Burrito.” By the way, the one actual food slur is unheard, so go figure.
Meanwhile, every Mexican character is smart, driven, and also talks about the ways of their proud grandmother.
Now, the problem isn’t that the characters are badly drawn stereotypes on all sides. They are, but that’s neither here nor there. The problem is that you have this attempt at a sort of earnest discussion of racism and immigration, and oh yeah, in between that a scene where a guy eviscerates someone and uses his intestines to swing out of a window like goddamn Tarzan. It makes no fucking sense. It would be like watching Amistad except the ship is full of bananas and every couple minutes someone slips on a fucking banana peel.
To make things worse, the ratio of race discussion to action is slanted so far towards political discussion that by the time you see Lindsay Lohan topless or Machete beat the shit out of some guy with a corkscrew, it’s not even worth it. You just don’t give a fuck.
You sold this movie to us as an action extravaganza, an over-the-top bloodfest. It’s not. There’s not even enough action to keep my ass in the seat for 90 minutes. And the action we did see was nothing special.
So here’s the thing: Machete was supposed to work on two levels. It was supposed to be all-out action, and it was supposed to make us think. It not only fails on one, but it fails on both. Terribly. The action was sparse and too far separated by long dialogues about immigration this and irony that. The discussion of race was completely flat. It didn’t change my mind on anything, nor did it bring up any angles that you don’t hear every day.
Not to get too into playing RaceMaster here, but you made it about race, so let’s look at the cast. Shit, Jessica Alba was born to American parents who were both born in America as well. Michelle Rodriguez’s parents were Dominican and Puerto Rican, not Mexican. Even Danny Trejo was born in Los Angeles. How do you make a movie about Mexican immigrants and none of your leads are even born in Mexico? You, Robert Rodriguez, have a lot of opportunity to help the Mexican people, if by nothing else than by giving a Mexican actor a payday. But you didn’t. So who’s failing the Mexican people here, me by seeing your movie or you by not throwing one Mexican a bone?
Sometimes, to get a dog to take a pill, youwrap it in hamburger. Something you think is necessary wrapped in something tasty. That’s what this movie could have been. Instead, it was a gigantic pill with a tiny hamburger center.
To be honest, I felt like you sold me this movie on false pretenses. If I see Eat, Pray, Love and hate it, that’s my own fault because when you see Oprah excited about anything you know you’re either in or out. But you sought me out as an audience and then basically made fun of me for 90 minutes. What the fuck?
Movie theaters need a new invention. When you go see a shitty movie they should be able to refund your money, not from their register or into your wallet, but at least from the box office total. It’s bad enough that you have to sit through something that sucks, but it’s an extra kick in the vas defrens when your dollars go towards the weekend total for something you didn’t even like.