As a knife-wielding outlaw, Trejo triumphs in ultimate B-movie
BY RICHARD ROEPER Sun-Times Columnist
He was born in a trailer. A movie trailer.
They call him Machete, because that's his name and that's his weapon of choice. (Good thing his last name isn't Water Pistol or Throw Pillow.) Danny Trejo is ... Machete!
And he's so good with the big knives, whirling and twirling and slicing and dicing and stabbing and throwing with lethal fierceness -- or maybe it's fierce lethalness -- that he could easily make the finals on "America's Got Talent."
This is one bloody good B-movie, with Robert De Niro, Lindsay Lohan, Jessica Alba, Steven Seagal and Don Johnson, among others, all taking a supporting back seat to Trejo, the craggy-faced, built-like-a-refrigerator character actor and former San Quentin inmate who has his first major leading role at age 66.
"Machete" was born as one of the fake trailers in the Quentin Tarantino/Robert Rodriguez double feature "Grindhouse." Reaction was so positive Rodriguez expanded the three-minute short into a full-length feature, with Trejo reprising his role as the Mexican federale turned outlaw/legend. Also returning are Cheech Marin as his brother, a priest who still knows how to wield a shotgun, and the underrated Jeff Fahey as Booth, a slimy businessman who hires Machete to take down a Texas state senator whose stance on immigration is so harsh, he makes Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer look like the Statue of Liberty. (We even get a return appearance by the Avellan sisters, who played the Babysitter Twins in the "Grindhouse" movies, now playing nurses. Nice to know the girls continued with their education.)
Sen. McLaughlin is played by De Niro, and it's not just a cameo a la Willis and Schwarzenegger in "The Expendables." He's really in this exploitation movie, as are the now-corpulent Steven Seagal as an evil Mexican crime lord; Don Johnson as a racist vigilante who thinks nothing of gunning down pregnant women at the Mexican/U.S. border; Jessica Alba as an ICE agent torn between enforcing the law and helping her people, and Michelle Rodriguez as the leader of an underground network that helps illegal immigrants. There's a high cheesecake factor: Alba takes a shower, while Rodriguez takes down bad guys while wearing hip-hugging black pants and a black bra. Both give excellent performances, particularly in the scenes just mentioned.
Here's the deal. Years after Machete's wife and daughter were murdered by the evil Torrez (Seagal), Machete's now working as a day laborer in Texas. (Someone would hire this guy to mow their lawn- Really- ) Booth takes note of Machete's fighting skills and recruits him to take down Sen. McLaughlin, but what Machete doesn't know is ... well, let's just say before you know it, Machete's on a mission for revenge. If you're one of the 100 or so henchmen working for various bad guys in this movie, you're probably going to be separated from your head or otherwise killed before the day is done.
Wait. How did I forget to mention the threesome involving Machete and Booth's wife and daughter, and the bad-girl daughter is played by Lindsay Lohan, who later shows up in a nun's habit, wielding a gun with serious intentions-
As you may have surmised by now, "Machete" is not a film with Academy Award ambitions. This is a film with multiple beheadings and shootings, a fully naked, knife-wielding hottie and a house burned to the ground -- and all of that happens BEFORE the opening credits. Rodriguez and co-director Ethan Maniquis know how to stage the kind of over-the-top, cringe-inducing violence that's so disgusting you have to laugh at the sheer audacity when the scene is over.
I don't believe I've ever seen a human intestine employed in the manner in which it is employed in this movie, and I mean that in a good (albeit nauseating) way.










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