Machete reviewed

Yeah, that's me and Danny Trejo, star of Machete, from February or March of 2008 and look how happy he is!  At the time, Machete was only a fake trailer attached to Grindhouse that was the most awesome thing about Grindhouse, even though Thanksgiving came close but I digress.  Anyways, my friend asked Mr. Trejo when Machete was going to happen.  He spoke, in run-on sentences, that it was going to be shooting in April, directed by Robert Rodriguez and distributed by Troublemaker Studios.  Obviously, April 2008 came around and nothing so we resigned ourselves to the trailer and nothing more.  But then in the beginning of 2010, a funny thing happened: there was news!  And then it was actually filming for release in September of 2010.  And so we waited, and now that day has come for trailers to become real movies!  But enough talk, time for reviewing!

Once upon a time, Machete was a federale out to bring justice to the evil Mexican drug load...Steven Seagal!  But something went wrong and Steven Seagal breaks his wife and daughter's neck with a sword and leaves Machete for dead.  It's now three years later and Machete has fallen to being an illegal immigrant who wanders the streets of Texas for day labor and stuff.  However, some guy sees that Machete is like a bad ass and stuff so he offers him $150,000 to kill Senator Robert DeNiro but they double cross him!  Now, he's off to get revenge on everyone and to screw the women.

As Robert Rodriguez has proven, again and again, he has real affinity with Grindhouse-y material like this.  But what differentiates him from anyone else doing modern-day Grindhouse, say Quentin Tarantino with Death Proof, is that Rodriguez embraces the myth of Grindhouse instead of the reality like Tarantino did.  There's a great fun when watching this as Rodriguez makes the action fun.  The violence is gloriously over-the-top has heads get lobbed off and blood flies everywhere.  However, as awesome as the action is, the bigger the villain the more anti-climatic the fight would be.  Those scenes never achieved the critical mass that was needed to fully enjoy the death of a villain.

As for the acting....well, it's a movie that's named Machete and Robert Rodriguez usually gets right performances than good ones, what do you think?  First off, I should talk about Machete himself, Danny Trejo.  He pretty much does the typical Danny Trejo character where he grimaces and kills.  I would not have it any other way.  But there's a surprise, two guys who actually do acting and do it pretty well, both of them villains.  Jeff Fahey, the guy who hires Machete, is actually pretty good.  He has a cool voice and a nice, expressive face that's lined with authority and then fear when his plan backfires on him.  Hell, even his big shootout had me convinced he since he did those cool SWAT-esque moves when he was he checking his surroundings.  The other guy is Don Johnson as the head of the vigilante, violent version of Border Patrol.  He takes his role seriously enough to put the fear of God in you when he walks, talks real slow and then kills some illegals.  As for everyone else, they do what they do in movies like this even though Steven Seagal as an out-and-out villain is pretty much pure gimmick but he does say his own lines and kick his own ass which automatically makes this his best performance in years.  Oh, and Lindsey Lohan barely gives up the goods here if you look real close and squint...or actually gives them up if she's actually in that pool making out with Machete but I think that's a body double....but a really good body double.

Machete is exactly what you expect for a Danny Trejo-led movie with gratuitous violence, gratuitous nudity and gratuitous Steven Seagal.  You already have all the information you need to decide if this is something you may enjoy.  For those who will like this, it's a fun ride at the theaters even if at 105 minutes, it overstays it welcome and the last couple scenes aren't very good.  But nothing did make me happier than seeing this: Machete will return in Machete Kills....and Machete Kills Again!  Whether it'll actually happen, time will tell but I'm looking forward for more Machete adventures.

7/10