Name: Machete
Release Date: 2010
Writers: Alvaro Rodriguez, Robert Rodriguez
Directors: Ethan Maniquis, Robert Rodriguez
Cast:
Danny Trejo: Machete Cortez
Robert De Niro: Senator John McLaughlin
Jessica Alba: Sartana
Steven Seagal: Rogelio Torrez
Michelle Rodriguez: Luz
Jeff Fahey: Michael Booth
Cheech Marin: Padre Cortez
Don Johnson: Von Jackson
Shea Whigham: Sniper
Lindsay Lohan: April
Run-Time: 105 mins.
Studio: Overnight Films
Grindhouse revivalist Robert Rodriguez strikes again with 
his unlikely meditation on America’s current wave of anti-illegal immigrant hysteria — which just happens to be masquerading as an ultra-violent, 1970s style MEXploitation flick.
The plot to “Machete” is so simple, it’s almost beside the point: Ex-Mexican Federale Machete (Trejo) is hired by Michael Booth, an unscrupulous Texas businessman (Fahey) to assassinate an anti-immigrant Texas state senator named John McLaughlin (DeNiro).
But when it turns out the hit is a set-up arranged by Booth and McLaughlin to further drum up anti-immigrant sentiment and secure the senator’s re-election, Machete sets out to seek revenge (most of which is meted out on the business end of his namesake weapon).
Along the way, he gets some help from a comely Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agent (Alba) and Luz (Rodriguez), a self-styled revolutionary, who helps downtrodden migrant workers.
Aging action hero and occasional real-life sheriff Steven Seagal (sporting the world’s worst Speedy Gonzalez accent) also stars as the Mexican drug lord pulling both Booth and McLaughlin’s strings.
There’s an amusing subplot with Lohan, who exhibits a previously unnoticed sense of humor playing Booth’s spoiled, drug-addicted daughter who later finds redemption courtesy of a nun’s habit and a very large machine gun. It also probably does not hurt that she spends about half her screen time topless, with only a few placed wisps of her blonde extensions protecting her modesty.
It probably goes without saying that the film ends with a spectacularly violent showdown between Trejo’s Machete and those who done him wrong. And it also probably goes without saying that he rides off into the sunset with the girl (Alba).
But several factors keep Machete from being just another paint-by-numbers action flick.
The first is Rodriguez’s very obvious affection for his material and his absolute devotion to evoking the spirit of 1970s-style B-cinema. That takes form in such tiny details as the washed out colors that make up the movie’s palette, suggesting nothing so much as aged film stock.
It’s hard not to laugh (and feel a glimmer of affection) as Trejo’s craggy faced Machete stalks across Rodriguez’s dusty and sun-splashed Texas landscape, efficiently dispatching villains while uttering monosyllables that make fellow action star Jason Statham seem loquacious.
The movie true grace, however, is the surgical skill it exhibits in taking apart those modern day demagogues who use talk radio, cable television and the Web to wage their own war on the Latinos who will soon compromise a majority of America’s population.
DeNiro is cartoonish as the xenophobic McLaughlin, but his pinheaded rhetoric is instantly recognizable to anyone who’s paid even a moment of attention to the debate over Arizona’s horrid attempts to control immigration.
And while it’s unlikely that an army of outraged migrant workers will ever rise up against the gringos with a flotilla of tricked-out Cadillacs (as happens in the final scene, to hilarious effect), Machete is a reminder that the complexion of America is changing. And the sooner we all drop the hateful nonsense, the better off we’re going to be as a people.
The Cineaste's Lament. 