Blogorium Review: Machete

This summer, I worried about Predators. I anticipated Inception. I decided to "wait and see" about The Expendables. I mostly didn't think about The Other Guys. I hoped Piranha 3-D would back up Aja's boasts of "gore and nudity". I politely tried to ignore Scott Pilgrim vs. The World. But there was one movie that I gave no second thought to, no pause: Machete. After Robert Rodriguez slapped that faux-trailer at the beginning of Grindhouse, there was no question that if it ever came to fruition, Machete would be pure exploitation through and through.

And folks, Rodriguez and co-director Ethan Maniquis deliver all the gore, guts, gratudity, and irreverence that the trailer promises, and then some. If you're not interested in seeing a movie where Danny Trejo uses a guy's intestines to swing from one floor of a hospital to another, then Machete isn't going to be your cup of tea. That's really the tip of the iceberg, too: expect numerous decapitations, Cheech Marin being crucified, Michelle Rodriguez losing an eye, threesomes, telephones hidden in vaginas, seppuku, defenstrations, electrocutions, and Lindsay Lohan.

Despite anything you were expecting, Machete does actually have a plot. In fact, it has several: Federale Machete (Danny Trejo) is trying to take down Mexican Drug Lord Torrez (Steven Seagal, doing the worst Mexican accent imaginable, until he drops it mid-movie), when he's betrayed by his chief. Torrez kills Machete's family and leaves him for dead. Three years later, on the other side of the Texas / Mexico border, Immigration Agent Sartana (Jessica Alba) is keeping an eye on illegals that formed the Network, led by Luz (Michelle Rodriguez) out of her taco stand. Meanwhile, a vigilante border patrol led by Lt. Stillman (Don Johnson) is hunting down and shooting anyone who crosses illegally, with the approval of Senator James McLaughlin (Robert DeNiro), who is running for re-election.

Following me so far? Okay, so Machete resurfaces in Texas as a day-laborer and is hired by Booth (Jeff Fahey) to assassinate Senator McLaughlin, but it turns out to be a trick since Booth is McLaughlin's campaign manager (none of this is spoiling anything since all of this set-up is in the trailer). Machete turns to his brother, a Padre (Cheech Marin) for help, and also seduces Booth's wife June (Alicia Marek) and Meth-head daughter April (Lindsay Lohan). Booth sends his sniper (Shea Washington) and bounty hunter Osiris Ampanpour (Tom Savini) after Machete while trying to maintain a massive conspiracy to re-elect McLaughlin so he'll build a border fence that only Torrez can smuggle drugs through. Sartana and Luz try to keep Machete alive while he seeks vengeance against Booth, McLaughlin, and Torrez, who he doesn't realize are connected (at first).

Still with me? That gets us to the halfway point of Machete and doesn't properly cover the less than subtle immigration subtext in the film, how the Crazy Babysitter Twins from Planet Terror figure into the film, or Booth's henchmen, or the reporter from Exactamundo Television, or the day-laborer army that the Network brings together to help Machete (including Spy Kids and World's Greatest Dad alum Daryl Sabara) or any other subplots that may involve Lindsay Lohan shooting people while dressed as a nun.

That the plot doesn't necessarily resolve itself should surprise no one, but there's plenty of mayhem and insanity to keep you occupied. At the center of it is Danny Trejo, who makes even the most implausible moments seem possible with his squinty-eyed, "I don't give a shit" attitude and genuine bad-ass presence. Jeff Fahey is on the opposite side as a sleazy, perverted politico willing to do anything to make money with a morally dubious boss (an over-the-top Robert DeNiro). Cheech Marin has fun as the confession taping, pot smoking Padre that wields dual shotguns, and somehow avoids his Nash Bridges co-star Don Johnson for the entire film.

Johnson and Savini are pure moustache twirling villains that chew up every scene they're in. Michelle Rodriguez acquaints herself to the film better than Jessica Alba does, but only because Alba seems so silly trying to rally Machete's army or fighting a Luchadore Hitman. And then there's Steven Seagal, who plays, well, Steven Seagal as a Mexican Druglord. I'm not kidding when I say he gives up on his terrible Mexican accent about halfway through the film, and I love his death scene, which may be the most ridiculous thing in an already over-the-top movie. Oh, and I guess there's Lindsay Lohan, who spends most of the movie naked but strategically placed in such a way that she's not really naked, unlike Alicia Marek, who spends most of the movie entirely naked. Just like Myra Leal, who is credited as Chica (Naked Girl) on IMDB.

I'm reasonably certain that most of the trailer was actually integrated into Machete, save for a handful of changes in the story between 2007 and 2010. As it is, Machete is a wildly offensive movie to just about all types, but what did you really expect from the trailer? Remember, this is the same Machete where the line "they just fucked with the wrong Mexican" is only slightly changed to incorporate the voiceover into actual dialogue. Machete is pure exploitation, and if it's not as knowingly goofy as Planet Terror, it's because of the earnest (if ridiculously delivered) anti-anti-immigration message. Plus, the film ends promising not one, but two sequels: Machete Kills and Machete Kills Again.

So needless to say that seeing Machete won't necessarily enrich your life or increase your standing among film snobs; I doubt that's going to linger in the minds of groups that go to see this wanton display of violence, nudity, gore, and hammy acting. Even if you try to give this a serious walk-through of intertextuality or critical analysis, you do so trying not to admit that you enjoyed a movie that promised nothing more than exploitation and delivered accordingly.

Blogorium Review: The Expendables

It's been said that "action movies" should be held to a different standard than other types of films (perhaps only "horror" as a blanket genre is given the same carte blanche in terms of excuses made for the relative comparisons to "other films"), and even the Cap'n will admit that a movie like The Expendables isn't something you're going to have an easy time comparing to Scott Pilgrim vs. The World and Eat, Pray, Love (it's competition this weekend). You can't even really compare it to an action movie disguised as sci-fi high art (Inception) or the typical "summer blockbuster" like Iron Man 2. It just doesn't work that way.

While I could compare The Expendables to Predators, I'm not going to for one simple reason: The Expendables isn't a sequel. It isn't a remake. It's not even necessarily an homage to the bygone era of 80s "machismo" films. It is a type of action movie that isn't necessarily made anymore, mostly because studios don't generally think audiences want an action movie that isn't dripping with irony or swimming in Looney Tunes physics. The Expendables is shamelessly "old school" while feeling essentially timeless. This movie - save for one joke make at Arnold Schwarzenegger's expense - could take place just about any time.

Normally speaking, you know that I don't go easy on movies that adhere to a formula without some kind of fresh take, and while Sylvester Stallone's The Expendables doesn't do anything new (at all) with the "action movie" formula, Sly came up with a better way of keeping things exciting: including as many of the biggest names from various "guy" arenas as he could in one movie.

Action movies generally fall into one of two categories: "men on a mission" (typified in something like The Dirty Dozen or Predator) or the "one man killing force" (Commando, Die Hard, They Live, Escape from New York). Occasionally, there's such a thing as the "team up" variant, usually a variation on the "buddy cop" Lethal Weapon / 48 Hours formula (The Last Boy Scout is a good example, or to a degree Universal Soldier), but The Expendables does something a little different. It's a hybrid of the first two, taking the "men on a mission" frame but granting every main character the indestructibility of a "one man killing force." In that regard, The Expendables is a total misnomer for this movie; despite the fact that that's the name of the team, (SPOILER) every single character introduced in the "pirate" sequence lives to the end of the movie.

So yes, you could (and should) call this movie The Indestructables, but it doesn't really matter. The appeal of The Expendables is seeing a movie that joins Sylvester Stallone with Jason Statham, Jet Li, Dolph Lundgren, former UFC light heavyweight champion Randy Couture, Terry Crews, "Stone Cold" Steve Austin, Eric Roberts, Gary Daniels, and Mickey Rourke. Oh yeah, and then there's that scene with Sly, Bruce Willis, and Arnold Schwarzenegger.

That's the core of the cast, filled out with Dexter's David Zayas as General Garza, the leader of a fictitious South American country (and puppet of Eric Roberts' ex-CIA agent Munroe), Giselle Itié as Garza's daughter, who helps The Expendables get into Vilena, and Angel's Charisma Carpenter as a love interest for Lee Christmas (Statham). Oh, and Lee Christmas isn't even the best name of the team: there's Mickey Rourke's Tool, Couture's Toll Road, Jet Li's Ying Yang, and my personal favorite - Terry Crews' Hale Caesar.

And at this point I should have chased away every person who wasn't going to see The Expendables from the moment they heard about it. Like Predators and the upcoming Machete, The Expendables is appealing to a male demographic anywhere between 15 and "old enough to have seen Predator in college." The story is just this simple: mercenary Barney Ross (Stallone) and The Expendables finish a mission, return to hang out at Tool's tattoo parlor and await their next mission. The mysterious Mr. Church (Willis) hires them to take out General Garza, Munroe, and their goons. And they do it.

I don't have to tell you anything else because when I explained "The Indestructables" concept, you know exactly what happens from there on out, so the only question left is "does it deliver?"

Yes it does. Many of the negative reviews of The Expendables focus on what the movie should have been rather than what it is. Of course it would be "cool" to see 103 minutes of carnage and explosions, just like it would be nice to see Samuel L. Jackson fight some muthafuckin' snakes on a muthafuckin' plane, but that's not what we get. In The Expendables' case, there's precedent for that not to happen, even if everyone assumed it would. There is carnage (oh goodness, and when there's carnage it delivers in spades) but the kind of movie The Expendables fits into has breaks in between the action and gore.

Every single one of them has as much (if not more) downtime between action scenes, and that includes the dumbest, loudest, and beloved-est (by the Cap'n anyway) of them all, Commando. Yes, he takes out an entire army by himself, but first Arnold has to figure out where his daughter is and how to get there. People tend to forget this and focus on the puns and one-liners, but you can go down the line and find the same amount of "bonding" or "guys talking" in any of the 80s action movies that The Expendables is invariably compared to.

Honestly, the movie works because of the meshing of styles. You have your 80s and 90s action icons teaming up with a Hong Kong martial arts legend, the best of the "new breed" of action stars (and Jason Statham is that to be sure) a UFC legend, a WWE Superstar, former stars turned DTV staples that got a second career wind (Roberts, Rourke), and Terry Crews, who appears in more comedy than action films but oozes charisma (no pun intended to Charisma Carpenter, who is just fine in a role that exists so that Statham can beat up six guys on a basketball court).

You get clashes of styles that no one really thought they'd see: Jet Li fighting Dolph Lundgren, Sly and Steve Austin having a beat-down, Randy Couture and Austin wrestling, Statham in a knife throwing contest with Mickey Rourke, and Terry Crews cleaning out rooms with a shotgun that fires explosive rounds. All the bases are covered: car chases, throat slicing, neck snapping, kung fu smackdowns, bodies blown to pieces, and of course, the Sylvester Stallone post-Rocky V trademark - a speech about losing your humanity because of the job (delivered by Mickey Rourke this time).

Nothing might actually top the three-way "macho" fest between Stallone, Willis, and Schwarzenegger, though. Stallone shoots the sequence like a Sergio Leone showdown, and each manly man of the Planet Hollywood trifecta refuses to give ground to the other one, resulting in one liners, stare-downs, and a sneaky acknowledgment of Arnold's political aspirations that generated the biggest laugh in the entire film. The only thing that comes close is a scene between Dolph Lundgren (who has quite a good performance in the film) and Steve Austin, two guys that I wouldn't want to be on the "bad" side of.

I will set a few things straight though: Terry Crews and Randy Couture are barely in The Expendables. There's a reason that Sylvester Stallone, Jason Statham, and Jet Li are listed before the title and everybody else comes afterward: Couture and Crews are in the beginning of the movie and the end of the movie, and that's it. Mickey Rourke and Steve Austin are in more of the film than the last two-fifths of The Expendables. Don't expect much more than Statham or Stallone in the protagonist on-screen ratio for the first half of the film. When Jet Li joins in as a main character, he gets a chance to shine, but even that's second fiddle to the co-leads.

And to address some of the "where was ____?", I'll just say that there's nowhere that Jean-Claude Van Damme or Steven Seagal would have fit in The Expendables that I saw. There's not really a role for either of them that'd make sense, even if JCVD had Jet Li's role (which is of "the short guy," and wouldn't have been as funny with the "Muscles from Brussels"). Stallone mentioned that he reached out to Kurt Russell, James Woods, Ben Kingsley, Forrest Whitaker, 50 Cent, and Danny Trejo, and that things didn't work out for various reasons. While I have no idea if there will be a sequel to the film, the ending certainly leaves things open enough to include more former members, new members, or rivals in another installment, so who knows.

By now all the Cap'n can do is help swing your decision to see it one way or the other. "Serious" reviewers (of which I clearly can't be for my taste in horror and action films) are going to scoff at anybody recommending this that isn't pouring a six-pack down their throat and butting heads as a greeting, but if you have an inclination for an action film that's not going to drive you crazy with badly edited fight scenes or feel the need to undermine itself whenever possible, or just an honest to goodness action movie with people who look like they could do the ridiculous things demanded of them, The Expendables will be the breath of fresh air you need.

Stallone doesn't re-invent the wheel, but he puts a frame around it that keeps you interested for an hour and forty five minutes that brings some of the best names together and doesn't insult you for buying a ticket. Is it comfort food for guys in the same way that Eat, Pray, Love is for gals and Scott Pilgrim is for geeks? Yeah, but at least it's good comfort food for a change. Even if there aren't any puns (that I can remember).

The Cap'n: Trash Savant hard at work...

One of the joys of filing dvds at work is that you come across titles you've never heard of. Most of them are deservedly "lost in the shuffle" but every now and then you find one that makes you chuckle for the next hour or so. Like Ablaze.

Ladies and Germs, this may be the best/worst blurb in dvd history:

In case you can't read that, let's get closer...


Indeed, Earl Dittman, it is a firestorm of fiery action and scorching suspense! It's a wonder I'd never heard of this movie before last night. If only I could bother to bring it home and watch... nah.

---

I wish I could say that Carnivorous was a movie I found at work, but the Cap'n has to thank Netflix for making me aware of a movie that pits a "supernatural" snake against DMX. At least, that's what I'm pretending it does. Somehow I'm guessing DMX is in this movie about as much as Steven Seagal is in Against the Dark, but a Cap'n can dream can't he?

If you're wondering why I didn't link to Carnivorous, it's because I couldn't find it on IMDB. At least, until I found it's real title: Lockjaw: Rise of the Kulev Serpent. Now tell me which one you'd rather see, Carnivorous or Lockjaw: Rise of the Kulev Serpent. (hint: it's the second one)

Don't worry, I have a sneaking suspicion it'll show up just in time for Trailer Sunday...

---

Speaking of Steven Seagal, it was only natural that I pair up my "why is that on..." Blu Ray of Out for Justice with Above the Law, another find at work. I believe someone asked aloud where my sudden interest in Steven Seagal came from, and I will tell you again that once you read Seagalogy, all will become clear. I can't say I'm as knowledgeable or as deeply interested in Seagal as Vern is but I've come to appreciate the man I once knew only from Exit Wounds.

Don't even look at me like that. Exit Wounds is a great movie. And (wait for it...) it costars DMX, of Lockjaw: Rise of the Kulev Serpent fame. And Michael Jai White, who I'm just going to assume you all know from Spawn and the deleted scene from Kill Bill volume 2 where he has an Australian accent.