{"id":9689,"date":"2010-09-24T10:39:33","date_gmt":"2010-09-24T18:39:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/?p=9689"},"modified":"2010-09-24T12:11:43","modified_gmt":"2010-09-24T20:11:43","slug":"machete-ethan-maniquisrobert-rodriguez-2010-usa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/?p=9689","title":{"rendered":"Machete (Ethan Maniquis\/Robert Rodriguez, 2010): USA"},"content":{"rendered":"

Reviewed by Kathleen Amboy<\/a>.\u00a0 Viewed at Fiesta Five, Santa Barbara, CA.<\/p>\n

\"\" Based on\u00a0a fake trailer within the 2007 \u00a0Rodriguez\/Tarantino Grindhouse<\/em> double-feature, \u00a0Machete<\/a><\/em> stars Danny Trejo in his first\u00a0lead role, and is about a former federale agent\u00a0bent on revenge.<\/p>\n

On the lam and hiding in the U.S. from Mexican drug lord Torrez (Steven Seagal),\u00a0Machete picks up odd jobs as a day laborer until one day he is hired by Booth (Jeff Fahey) as a hitman.<\/p>\n

He soon discovers the job was a ploy to boost the political career of his target Senator McLaughlin (Robert De Niro). By setting\u00a0McLaughlin up as a victim of an illegal immigrant,\u00a0 his political stance and support for a much\u00a0tighter border would be boosted.\u00a0 However, the shooting goes awry and once again Machete is on the lam, but this time with his\u00a0recognizable\u00a0face plastered all over the news media.\u00a0 Tracking Machete is INS Agent Sartana (Jessica Alba),\u00a0 who eventually\u00a0catches up to him, surveys the situation and decides to help expose the truth.<\/p>\n

Machete’s weapon of choice is none other than a machete blade,\u00a0which he wields with reckless abandon, slicing, dicing and chopping any body part that is readily available –\u00a0many scenes are gruesome yet over-the-top.\u00a0 Machete also has a magnetic\u00a0libido in which women just throw themselves at him with irresistible lust, but\u00a0in humorous, exploitive fashion.<\/p>\n

The character of Machete seems to\u00a0fit Trejo like a glove – hardly surprising given the fact\u00a0that Rodriguez wrote the part specifically with him in mind, and having had the idea many years ago\u00a0during Trejo’s memorable work in Desperado<\/em> and From Dusk til Dawn. <\/em>Trejo has both\u00a0the charisma and flexibility to perform the role of anti hero and chick magnet, but\u00a0with tongue-in-cheek humor, which is what this film delivers.<\/p>\n

Action\u00a0hero\u00a0Steven\u00a0Seagal appears to typecast himself into the\u00a0usual whispery\u00a0performance,\u00a0while Jeff Fahey delivers a smooth likeable\u00a0villain in Booth.\u00a0 De Niro\u00a0is great\u00a0as the sleazy politician, but Lindsay Lohan with A-list actors?\u00a0 Her medium really should be \u00a0B flicks only.<\/p>\n

Machete<\/em> is a mockery of exploitation films, and unless one enjoys and understands this style of filmmaking from the 60’s and 70’s (or is a fan of Trejo’s or Rodriguez’s work) it probably will not appeal to the average audience.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reviewed by Kathleen Amboy.\u00a0 Viewed at Fiesta Five, Santa Barbara, CA. Based on\u00a0a fake trailer within the 2007 \u00a0Rodriguez\/Tarantino Grindhouse double-feature, \u00a0Machete stars Danny Trejo in his first\u00a0lead role, and is about a former federale agent\u00a0bent on revenge. On the lam and hiding in the U.S. from Mexican drug lord Torrez (Steven Seagal),\u00a0Machete picks up […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":49,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9689","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-films"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9689","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/49"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9689"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9689\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9689"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9689"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentfilmreviews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9689"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}