I always say that “Dumb & Dumber” is a dumb smart movie, and I’ll say the exact same thing about Robert Rodriguez’s “Machete”: It’s very stupid, yet also remarkably intelligent. And hilarious. Make no mistake about it, even if you someday find it in the action section at the video store: “Machete” is a comedy.
The humor starts with the TV commercial previews which warn/promise that it’s rated R for “bloody violence and nudity.” When the ticket taker at the theater told me “You’re seeing a bloody one,” that just made me think that it will live up to the hype. “Machete” is incredibly violent, but it’s of the cartoony variety. Machete’s machete slices off limbs and heads and the bad guys are instantly dead. Violence in highly respected war movies, which is intended to show killing and wounding the way it really happens, is much more disturbing.
In an early scene, Machete (Danny Trejo) — after being rescued and taken to a secret hospital run by the Network (an underground group of good guys) — is told by a doctor that human intestines are 60 feet long. The doctor also mentions in passing that a certain surgical instrument will slice through flesh like butter. Naturally, it’s only a matter of minutes later that Machete is crashing through a window, using a bad guy’s intestines as a makeshift rope.
I probably forgot more funny moments from this movie than I remember. A few stayed with me, though:
- Machete rolls a clearly empty cart down the hall past the bad guys, then — after a cut-away shot — springs out from the bottom of the cart.
- Machete punches a cell phone keypad a few times, and we learn in the next scene that he texted something with many more letters to the villain. (And it’s an awesomely quotable text.)
- One of the bad guys, Booth (Jeff Fahey), is eating a meal of tacos and salsa at his mansion, even as he’s talking about how all illegal Mexican immigrants must die.
As I said, “Machete” is a smart movie, but don’t confuse it with an accurate, in-depth exploration of the U.S.-Mexico border controversy. It’s a parody of that issue, but it’s through the use of parody that it makes a viewer think about how ridiculous the extreme stances on both sides are. And perhaps, by exposing the hypocrisy and absurdity of the extremists, it might lead to cooler heads getting together and solving this problem.
Although the bloody violence, nudity and hilarity promised in the trailers (both the fake one from 2006 and the actual one from this year) are present in abundance, this isn’t quite a “throw it at the screen and see what works” grindhouse movie. The plot, for example, holds together much better than that of “The Expendables,” which was not necessarily trying to be as stupid as it turned out to be.
As with Rodriguez’s “Planet Terror” from “Grindhouse,” the actors in “Machete” play it straight; they let the natural absurdity of the script set the humorous mood. The cast is very good. Trejo, with his catcher’s-mitt face, is a great anti-hero. It’s remarkable that he has had hundreds of supporting roles — but very few lead roles — when you consider that your eye is drawn to him in every scene. Well, maybe not every scene: Jessica Alba is kind of hard to look away from, too; she plays an ICE agent with conflicting loyalties (she believes in the law, but she also believes in what’s right).
Rounding out the cast, Michelle Rodriguez is the Network leader, Robert De Niro is the corrupt senator, Don Johnson is the vigilante border guard, and Steven Seagal is the drug kingpin behind the whole operation. Cheech Marin and Lindsay Lohan have smaller, but memorable, roles.
The Mexicans are very much the good guys and the Americans are very much the bad guys, yet I doubt “Machete” will stir up much controversy through these portrayals. That’s because it’s so over-the-top. For example, Johnson’s method of border patrol is to blatantly murder Mexicans trying to cross it (and to videotape the action).
Meanwhile, Machete is busy cutting through the web of lies and conspiracy by slicing and spearing bad guys with his weapon of choice. “Machete” is packed with cues that you shouldn’t take it seriously, even if the issue of illegal immigration itself is serious.
“Machete” is the best time I’ve had at the movies this year. There’s really nothing else on the 2010 docket remotely like it. There should be more movies like this.