Up and Coming Weekly is a weekly publication in Fayetteville, NC and Fort Bragg, NC area offering local news, views, arts, entertainment and community event and business information.
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Machete Don’t Text Machete (Rated R) by HEATHER GRIFFITHS Fans of the Grindhouse duo (Death Proof/Planet Terror) have been waiting for Machete (105 minutes) since the moment they saw Robert Rodriguez’s fake trailer. The over-the-top explosion-filled exploitation fest promised fans of violence, gore and nudity a real treat! Any fan of Rodriguez is familiar with Danny Trejo play- ing a character called Machete … he used the same idea in his popular Spy Kids franchise. Of course, there is no relation between the two films or the two characters, but it shows how long the ideas for this movie have sim- mered. Much like home-cooked chili, the longer he let his ideas mingle over low heat, the better the final product. The movie opens on scenes as bloody as possible, and the nude shots leave nothing to the imagination. This was a deliberate choice, since it sets up the perception that later nude scenes reveal much more than they actual- ly do, as well as establishing the baseline for the wonder- fully cartoonish impalements and implosions that follow. Machete (Trejo) is a Mexican Federale working a case with no back up but his red shirt wearing partner. Several joke shots, impalements, be-headings and nude shots later, Machete finds himself on the wrong end of a samurai sword/ flamethrower combo. In turns out that drug lord Torrez (Steven Seagal … and it has been, far, far, too long Sherriff Crazy pants) is a wee bit more clever than Machete, although not clever enough to deliver a bullet to the head of his enemy. In the grand tradition of Crazy Evil Bad Guys, Torrez much prefers to make elaborate speeches and assume the unnecessarily complicated death of his enemy has occurred out of his eyeshot. Unsurprisingly, Machete is not killed, or badly scarred or even slightly inconvenienced by the villain’s ineffectual attacks. The story picks up three years later. He has ended up in Texas, where he catches the eye of both Agent Sartana (an unbelievably gor- geous Jessica Alba) and Luz (an unbelievably gorgeous Michelle Rodriguez). While Sartana and Luz are debating who gets Machete first, Michael Booth (a weirdly greasy Jeff Fahey) picks him out of the crowd and persuades him to take on a job. The job doesn’t pay much, but as a bonus he gets to shoot Senator McLaughlin (Robert De Niro). The shooting is part of an elaborate plan that goes horri- bly wrong for our hero, although he does get to play with many awesome weapons. After an exciting chase scene that continues sporadi- cally throughout the rest of the movie, Machete ends up in the hospital. He MacGyver’s some killing tools togeth- er and manages to evade capture some more. He ends up in a church with the morally flexible Padre (Cheech Marin) in between making out with the entire female cast in order of hotness. Lindsay Lohan shows up, Don Johnson makes an appearance and Tom Savini continues his mission to guest star in every movie. Overall the film was cheesy, grainy, bloody good fun. COMMENTS? 484-6200 ext. 222 or editor@upandcomingweekly.com HEATHER GRIFFITHS, Contributing Writer 30 UCW SEPTEMBER 22-28, 2010 WWW.UPANDCOMINGWEEKLY.COM