If you missed Steven Seagal in the retinue of aging, Coarse-veined-men That they made up The Expendables, Robert Rodriguez has filled the void. Seagal plays the ultimate Highest level Villain in Machete, a much anticipated movie ever since birth ITS as a fake trailer Attached to the Rodriguez-Tarantino double bill Grindhouse experience. They Also throws in Don Johnson and Jeff Fahey.
Now That Machete has finally emerged as a full-grown movie has ITS own, it an interesting Draws Comparison With its opening weekend competitor, the George Clooney "thriller," The American. Both are about men lone Ken Can Trust no one; Both are elegant experts in Their Chosen Forms of death, and everyone, seemingly, is out to get the truth. These are broad terms, though, and though there are some minor similarities, such "as a car chase here or there, and a priest or two, that's Where The Similarity ends. The American is a slow moving Intellectual or existential story in the tradition of meditative European tales of killers finally Facing Themselves, while Machete is a non-stop action film anything goes in the drive-in tradition.
The American Can Be hard to follow. It is based on a novel by the late Martin Booth, called the A Very Private Gentleman, about a gun Craftsman Thurs Assassins living in a small Italian village. Some of the turbid That stuff happens in the book vain is transmuted by the screenwriter and by the director, former photographer Anton Corbijn, whose first film was the Joy Division bio-pic, Control. George Clooney is now the main character, Ken Escapes an Assassination Attempt and ends up in a small village in Abruzzo (we know Because we see him reading a book about it), Awaiting Further orders from at his mysterious boss. Even the film can not make it clear if the main character Makes guns, shoots guns, or both. He is an adept Marksman, vain the bulk of the movie bothered him working on a rifle, ordered by special at his boss for a client. When they isn't Filling rifle barrels, is they are driving. Driving and driving. And isn't "when they are driving, they Chatting is a priest with the WHO, in traditional fashion, sees the enthusiasm at his seoul, or who is having" sex with a prostitute, Ken takes an outside interest in him.
Reading the wealth of reviews of The American is a Rotten Tomatoes is a sobering experience for Both a professional writer and a fan of film and film Writing. Some 132 writers address the film, yet of the 40 or so I sampled, they all Said basically the cloudy thing: that it is slow, That Clooney is with Drawn, That it is more visual please active, And that it withholds more than just it tells , Among a handful of some 20 points. Some liked it, some Did not, "when vain They liked it They did so for the turbid hmmmm That the dislikers Used Thurs dismiss it, paradoxically. Do me this really need dependency Many reviewers Thurs Their record observations if They are going to be uniforms? In Addition, the rating system at RT Seems off. Based on a cursory survey, That the tests were really clearly what should be negative or at best mixed were tagged with a positive "tomato" rating, skewing the results toward the plus side. Have Been pundits bemoaning the firings of staff movie reviewers from the Ranks of dying news papers, but their well that was really such "a loss? I'd Rather read 10 Completely writers opposed, say, Unpredictable Armond White and modern classicist Jonathan Rosenbaum, and eight others equally Diverse, please writers Ken 140 all say basically the cloudy thing. Do they all get talking points from Reviewer Central every Thursday night?
Machete shares girls on Recent Cinematic quirk, this one with vain Salt. In the Angelina Jolie action film, she, at one point, uses a Taser Thurs Both render an incapacitated while Opponent Also using ITS Shocks the man to try to steer the car they was "when she Operating zapped him, making him turn the wheel in the direction she chooses. Machete does with the cloudy thing at his blade, having "run through a cop from the back seat, then Twisting the blade left and right to" steer "the car.
That gives you an idea of the craziness of Machete - anything goes. People are shot in the eye and come back to life; superior killers not have a preternatural Notion of wakes up around the next corner head That Needs to Be exploded is coming from, and as long as you are not right inside the circumference of an explosion, you are not in the injured - You Can be a couple of Steps outside it. Machete is meant to Be comic - Also deadly Serious vain. Machete (Danny Trejo) is a man out of a spaghetti western, a grim silent man with a painful past. His skills are not in the 100 per cent Inhuman, as in The Expendables, Can, as they occasionally get beat up or bested, vain, they does things others can not, as such "drive-through motor cycle through fire while shooting the machine got Attached Thurs ITS handlebars. But amid all the violent comedy, there are satirical points about the state of the union, at least that many inhabitants tion by a Hispanic-American writer-director. Thus a man Campaigning against Illegal aliens ends up shot Trying Thurs cross back into the United States Because they is dressed like a Peo. The smile is at his face as they dies reveals That they gets the irony. There is no Way We can not get it, either.
As he did in Sin City, Rodriguez peppers the film with lots of Blown up heads and mangled body parts and a dream cast of "where not have Crap think Been" Lost stars and orphans. These include Robert De Niro, regular Rodriguez, Cheech Marin, and special Effects Savant Tom Savini. Michael Parks is supposed to Be in there somewhere as Tarantino-creation Sheriff Earl McGraw, but i must not have missed him. On the female side, Rodriguez gets away with erotic figurines That no one else can, women as outsized as pneumatically Machete's weapons, as such "twin chop shop mavens and voluptuous Nurses Ken get mad if you look at Their voluptuousness. Rodriguez was also Life Style, thankfully, Able Thurs interest Jessica Alba, Michelle Rodriguez, and Lindsay Lohan in the script they wrote with Álvaro Rodríguez. All of Them are sexy and funny and tough, and the real reason to watch Rodriguez's film.
For in the end, Machete is something of a disappointment. It is ultimately violent Not Enough, Enough funny, clever Enough, and the bad guys Generally fail to die with wit and a Flourish. If the American is too silent, Machete is too talky. If The American has only-three action scenes, well, so basically does Machete. In a way, Rodriguez's films are carbon copies of John Carpenter's. All are about a lone man or isolated team fending off an Onslaught from face less hoard, the zombie movie template. Machete Begins with a bang as the ITS hero, in a pre-credits flashback, enters a house shoots, SLICES, and decapitates 90 Fri cent, investigation of its residents (Jeff Fahey does exactly the cloudy thing in a replicate scene in the middle of the film) . It's a good thing starts off Machete That is such "a high, Because it is a long time before anything violent, fun, or funny happens again.
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