Review by Roger Taylor

Robert Rodriguez has turned a 66-year-old character actor into an action star.  Danny Trejo has appeared in nearly 200 films and television shows since the mid 1980’s, but this is his first starring role.  Born in Los Angeles in 1944 he had a troubled youth and spent most of the 1960’s touring the California prison system. During a stretch at San Quentin he won the lightweight and welterweight boxing titles and completed a 12-step program to kick a drug addiction.  To see him in this film you would never know he is eligible for social security.

This movie started as a fake movie trailer in the 2007 campy double-feature “Grindhouse” which consisted of a number of film segments and made-up movie trailers reminiscent of a night of 1970’s B-movies at the local drive-in. Rodriguez has put together quite a supporting cast, from Robert De Niro as a Texas senator to Lindsay Lohan as a drugged out party girl. (Big stretch there!) There’s Don Johnson as a trigger-happy vigilante, Michelle Rodriguez as head of the Mexican underground, Cheech Marin as a gun-toting priest, Jessica Alba as an immigration officer and Steven Seagal as a drug kingpin.

Over the top doesn’t begin to describe this film.  I’ve heard it described as a Mexploitation film and it takes every opportunity to address the illegal alien topic. (Hello Arizona) There is plenty of blood and gore, but it is so exaggerated it’s almost cartoonish.  There are at least half a dozen decapitations in the first few minutes of the film.  If this isn’t your cup of tea, stay away.  I probably wouldn’t have seen this one myself, but the cast and tongue in cheek attitude of the movie’s trailers got my attention.  The main character’s name is Machete and that is his weapon of choice, but you start to wonder what everyday item will be used as a weapon next, kitchen utensils, a weed-eater, a high heal shoe. 

If you are not too squeamish this movie is a lot of fun.  It’s truly a live action comic book, set reality aside and get ready for a wild ride.  If you liked Robert Rodriguez films like “Sin City”, “From Dusk Till Dawn” and “Desperado” you’ll love this one. I won’t tell you which actors survive the film, but there are plenty for the sequel or sequels as the film declares before the end credits.  Then again, this film was made years after it’s fake trailer and another fictional trailer from “Grindhouse” has been made into a movie “Hobo With A Shotgun”, coming soon to a theatre near you.  Who knows, maybe we’ll see “Machete vs Hobo”.