Machete should have just stayed at being that really fun trailer we all loved from Grindhouse. Instead, it’s now a somewhat enjoyable, artificial ode to grindhouse films. It worked great as a two-minute joke, but it wears thin one past 90 minutes. It’s repetitive and only a few moments work. .
When I said “artificial” ode to grindhouse films I meant that this doesn’t at all like a grindhouse film. Just like Robert Rodriguez‘s superior Planet Terror, it feels like a Hollywood take on the genre. It’s shot digitally (from the looks of it), is full of CG blood work and just doesn’t capture that old school feel it seems to be going for. And you’re just not quite sure what Rodriguez and co-director Ethan Maniquis were going for. Are they trying to parody the genre? Make a new entry into the genre itself? Or just a regular old-fashioned action movie? It’s difficult to say, and the tone also makes it even more difficult in deciding.
Actors are important when it comes to making an outlandish tone work. If they’re not all on the same page, it can be jarring. So when Robert De Niro is acting hilariously over-the-top and Jessica Alba is playing it slightly with her tongue in her cheek, it still feels odd; as is the case with most of the cast. Everybody seems to know they’re not in Schindler’s List, but the cast seems to be on different levels as to what level of parody they’re working on.
Rodriguez gets his high-octane B-movie fun on, but he’s never seemed more confused than he is here. Besides not knowing what it wants to be, it’s also a narrative mess. The script is more-or-less a bunch of episodes rather than an actual smooth tale of revenge. Machete’s encounters, who is also rather persona-less and even a little dull, are a joy to watch but once they’re done you’re impatiently waiting for the next big moment. And as for the scope, it’s limited. Rodriguez is known for stretching budgets, but here he has achieved less success than he did with other 2010 film, the Predators reboot.
Machete delivers on the blood, but perhaps not on the all-out mayhem expected. Unfortunately, Machete is not the incredible piece of insanity that it could have been.