Review: Machete Kills!

When a madman revolutionary with a split personality (both played by Demian Bichir) threatens to blow up the White House armed with a bomb designed by nutjob arms dealer Voz (Mel Gibson), the American President (Charlie Sheen!) can rely on only ONE MAN: Machete (Danny Trejo). Michelle Rodriguez is back as Machete’s right-hand woman, Luz, whilst Amber Heard turns up as Miss San Antonio, a beauty queen who also happens to be Machete’s contact on this case. Sofia Vergara and her weaponised breasts turn up as a madam with a throng of deadly hookers. Lady Gaga, Walton Goggins, Cuba Gooding Jr., and Antonio Banderas all combine to play a dangerous hitman targeting Bichir and constantly changing their appearance. William Sadler plays a sheriff, whilst the always welcome Tom Savini reprises his assassin role from the first film, but now apparently a reformed man.

 

Lightning doesn’t quite strike twice in this 2013 follow-up to the splat-tastic action/exploitation homage from filmmaker Robert Rodriguez (“Desperado”, “Sin City”, “Planet Terror”). What we do have, however, is a film that is almost, if not quite as much fun. It gets pretty damn close, actually and the only thing really lacking here is freshness. So long as you understand the inevitability of that, if you liked the first film, you’ll like this one, too. I was hoping the title would be “Machete Don’t Text”, but this will do.

 

We open with a preview for “Machete Kills Again…in Space”, and if Rodriguez doesn’t make that film, I’ll be bitterly disappointed. Yes, even with Lady Gaga, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Justin Bieber in the cast. Funny stuff. In the opening moments of the film proper we get decapitations aplenty, guys sliced in half, an original star taking one in the head, and 70-ish Danny Trejo kicking arse. Yes please. We also get a genuinely hilarious bit as Machete gets hung…but doesn’t flinch, let alone die. That’s one tough sumabitch, our Machete. Later on, Rodriguez outdoes the ‘guy has a fatal encounter with a chopper blade’ bit, as a guy gets sliced, diced, and splattered. Nice. He then proceeds to one-up himself by doing it again but adding an explosion. He then gives us basically the speedboat engine version of such a scene. The body count, as you would imagine is extremely high and nihilistic in the best way possible. Hell, I think this film might have the most decapitations of any film in history, yes even more than “Highlander” and “Sleepy Hollow”. You’ve gotta love Robert Rodriguez, not only are his films since “Once Upon a Time in Mexico” genuinely entertaining (I’m not a fan of “El Mariachi” or “Desperado”), but unlike Quentin Tarantino, he seems to refuse to grow up. I’m cool with that.

 

The cast this time out is truly insane, with special mention going to Amber Heard, Sofia Vergara, Charlie Sheen, and Demian Bichir. This for me is the best role of the truly stunning and sexy Amber Heard’s career to date. One could argue that she disappears for too long in the midsection, but as a beauty queen who is more than meets the eye, she’s terrific. Her beauty pageant speech is pretty funny, and I’d just like to say Fuck You, Johnny Depp. She does seem to have a no-nudity clause here, despite briefly showing the goods in previous films, but Rodriguez amusingly gets around this with a “3D” sex scene. I would’ve simply gone the CGI route again myself, I think filmmakers should always go that option when they encounter a prudish actress. Still, Heard otherwise really gets into the spirit of this, sensationally hot and good fun. Her best scenes are with Michelle Rodriguez, who like Heard ought to have been in more of the film. Nonetheless, the dialogue during their big shootout is hilariously awful, and acted by Heard and Rodriguez in that grey area of camp where you can’t quite tell if they’re in on it or not. And that’s not a complaint, either. Rodriguez has fun at both actresses expense with the best joke in the film as Rodriguez ends up jealous of Heard over Machete’s affections. Heard was known to be into chicks before becoming involved with Johnny Depp, and we all know Rodriguez seems to be of a similar persuasion, so it’s rather amusing for followers of trashy tabloid TV. For me, though, Sofia Vergara actually walks off with the whole film. She and her impenetrable accent are well-used here. She’s hot as hell and just plain likeable. Yes, there’s way too many clothed women working in a whorehouse, but Vergara shoots shuriken from her tits for crying out loud! Shuriken! Tits! Oh my God! She even gets to wear the crotch gun from Rodriguez’s “From Dusk ‘Til Dawn”. Yes, you read that correctly. Did I mention that she is also a literal man-eater here? It’s a sadistically funny performance from Vergara that might just turn a few heads. Rodriguez has a lot of fun with Charlie Sheen here, starting by billing him as ‘Introducing Carlos Estevez’. He plays the President of the United States, and more than just hilarious casting, he’s clearly enjoying himself on screen, and it infects the audience. He’s very funny, and very, very dubious. I mean, this is the seediest American President of all-time, and the film is almost worth seeing just for the scene where Sheen gets a late night phone call and reveals himself to be the Hugh Hefner of The White House. It plays out like a sight gag from a ZAZ spoof, ala “The Naked Gun!”.

 

Demian Bichir is an absolute hoot in one of the craziest roles in the film. He’s playing a schizoid with both a benign and evil persona inside of him. For the crazy side of his persona, I swear Mr. Bichir is channelling acclaimed Mexican actor/director Alfonso Arau, circa 1986, and it’s great to see him do something completely different, and completely silly. And yet, he effortlessly slides into the more benign persona when required, too. If anyone gives a genuinely good performance here, it’s probably Bichir, and he appears to be having a whale of a time, too. I also think it’s a genuinely cool idea to have Bichir unable to be killed or else a bomb will be set off, and then have a bunch of killers and assassins coming out to try and rub him out. It adds genuine tension to the film, albeit darkly comedic too. And then there’s the contribution by Mel Gibson as the film’s chief villain. He’s looking to be having fun here, and is a serious upgrade from Steven Seagal in the first film. Seagal was fun stunt casting, but Gibson gives a pretty good performance as well (Second behind Bichir only, with Heard coming in third), something one can’t say for Seagal. The funny thing about Gibson is that he appears to be playing Donald Pleasence as Blofeld in “You Only Live Twice”. Look at the scene where he shows Machete around his lair, it’s remarkably similar to a scene in “You Only Live Twice”. It’s genuinely amusing to see Gibson play a nutter with global destruction on his mind. He’s a good actor and undeniable movie star, if a highly questionable human being, going by what one sees in the media (Which may or may not be fair, I suppose). In smaller turns, William Sadler proves to be an improvement over Don Johnson in the first film playing much the same role, most of Antonio Banderas’ scenes are dubbed by Walton Goggins in a joke that also ropes in Cuba Gooding Jr., but doesn’t mine all that much humour. Lady Gaga deserves a mention for pretty much reminding one of John Waters and Russ Meyer flicks, as she admirably gets into the trashy spirit of things. It’s a good use of her, no doubt. The music score by Rodriguez and Carl Thiel is excellent, reminding me of the late Basil Poledouris (“Conan the Barbarian”, “Robocop”).

 

This is just a shade below the first film, but much in the same spirit and not too far off the same result. Trejo as always is spot-on, and we get good turns from Amber Heard, Mel Gibson, and especially Sofia Vergara and Demian Bichir. “Machete Kills Again…in Space” looks like it’ll be the best one yet, I can’t wait!

 

Rating: B-