REVIEW: ‘Machete’

“I sell tacos to the workers of the world.  It fills their bellies with something other than hate.”

I hate to pick on poor, poor Michael Cera again, but his situation helps when approaching discussion of Danny Trejo.  As audience members, we usually know the score with most actors.  Some immerse themselves so deeply you can begin to see them as a different entity; Daniel Day-Lewis in “Gangs of New York” and “There Will Be Blood”, and Al Pacino in “Glengarry Glen Ross” stand out in my mind as actors who suddenly don’t seem like themselves (and without the benefit of complete masks of make-up).  Some actors don’t make much effort to hide: an accent or hairstyle might be the extent of how they obscure themselves in the character’s name, but they are very clearly “Harvey Keitel as an FBI agent” or “Harrison Ford as The President”.  The elder DeNiro is very much this kind of actor, but given the extent of his earlier efforts, one can almost give him a pass despite hoping that each new film might bring back that adventurous artist once more.

Then again, there are actors whose very physical presence fulfills their performance requirements.  Cera, on one end of the spectrum, is one of these.  Danny Trejo is another.

Trejo has made a career out of the grim-faced, imposing hulk who has threatened his way across 25 years of cinema.  The long hair, tattoos, skin as raw and worn as the earth itself.  Yet the actor has a very winning presence on screen, and audiences love when he makes an appearance.

He also seems to be good friends with Austin-based guerilla filmmaker Robert Rodriquez, co-starring in most of his films to great effect (Trejo’s one nice-guy performance?  “Spy Kids”, where he plays…Uncle Machete?).  So when Rodriguez’s contribution to the “Grindhouse” experience included a fake trailer for a funny, bloody, action-packed thriller called “Machete”, it became a huge hit with fans.

Now we have the feature version of “Machete”, and it is safe to say that Rodriguez, Trejo & company have created what should be known as the official last film of summer.  It has all the action, humor and bloodletting that a summer release is expected to supply, and should have been released back in June during what has become known as one of the least consistent summers of recent years.

“Machete” hits all the highpoints of that earlier fake trailer (save for the dispatching of a certain henchman with a buzz saw), and makes a grave tale out of its immigration-policy-wrapped-in-drug-trade-meets-grindhouse-crime-thriller plot.  More to the point: Rodriguez has charged his cast with taking the silliness of the story and treating it terribly seriously.  There is an over-archness to many of the characters that hasn’t been seen on screen since the exploitation of the Seventies.  Yet the filmmakers decided to utilize the faux-scratchy film and poorly-lit and -framed grindhouse effects in the opening scene and credit sequence only.  Past that, the film looks fairly normal.

Machete (Trejo) is a Mexican Federale out to nab drug kingpin Torrez (a sublimely stiff Steven Seagal).  Hiding out stateside years after a bust gone bad with deeply personal losses, Machete comes across Luz (Michelle Rodriguez), a taco-truck revolutionary who leads a network of citizens and illegal immigrants who want to safeguard migrant workers from unsavory politicians like Senator John McLaughlin (a Texas-twangin’ DeNiro, huffing and puffing borderline hate speech) and vigilantes such as Lt. Stillman (“introducing” a flat-out terrific Don Johnson).   Machete is approached by businessman Booth (Jeff Fahey), who thinks the lawman is an illegal, and offers him a job: assassinate the Senator at a rally the next day, and prevent his efforts to lock down the country behind an electrified fence.  But Booth is tied to powers that will create a lot of trouble for Machete, Luz and the network, and from the sidelines, a young, idealistic ICE agent (Jessica Alba) thinks she can set things in motion to prevent that from happening.

The film has a consistency of tone and pace (rare for exploitation films), which works to its advantage.  It never feels jokey or winks at the camera; it just keeps punching the right buttons every step of the way.  Gory dismemberments; straight-faced, perfectly-timed comedy; dialogue as soapy as it is seriously delivered; perfect action poses: check, check, check.  “Machete” provides an all-around good time, for the sexy, sassy, explosive fun that the season demands.

What surprises there are can be found in the casting.  Fahey has a lot to do in the film, and he chews up scenery and delivers terse ultimatums with the best of them.  But Johnson, almost forgotten though not out of the game, treats his murderous, hate-filled character as if he were aiming for an Oscar.  It’s one of those performances where, again, you almost wouldn’t realize it was that Don Johnson if you hadn’t already been told.

Some casting seems a bit more fun, and some more creepily obvious.  Cheech Marin (another Rodriguez regular) plays Machete’s brother Padre, who handles a shotgun with the same ease he hears confession.   But as Booth’s drugged-up, half-naked, celebrity-seeking daughter, Lindsey Lohan has the least to do of anyone, and what she does is queasily close to real life (short of throwing on a habit and shooting bad guys, of course).

Despite its grindhouse pedigree, “Machete” does offer a few original sights, like a man leaping out of a window, using an enemy’s entrails as a jump-cord.  Let it suffice that the film has a hard-R rating, and with good reason.  But that doesn’t detract from the level of enjoyment it brings.  “Machete” ends the summer on a rare high-note, and sets the bar for grimy, good exploitation fun.