Machete or the Good, Bad and the Ugly
We saw Machete today at the local cinema enjoying a break from our self-imposed healthy weight-loss diet accompanied by plenty of popcorn — in fact getting the popcorn was the primary reason we went to the movies. Machete is an action film with a strange assortment of stars in the supporting roles and Danny Trejo playing the world's ugliest man as the title character, "Machete." I won't reveal anything about the plot here, but I will say that if the world worked the way it is portrayed in the film, then anyone with an IQ of 110 or more would rule. In other words, the story is very stupid and unbelievable. The average superhero comic book is more realistic and sophisticated than the script of "Machete."
Luckily, the story's lack of realism and believability is partially made up for by generally good acting and some pretty good action scenes. However, you will definitely have had your fill of seeing people cut, carved, sliced open, decapitated, amputated, and disemboweled by large knives and machetes well before this piece of art concludes. One notable and surprising exception to the consistent good acting is Robert De Niro's delivery. De Niro plays a down-home, right wing Texas politician, but sounds more like a New York deli counterman with periodic weak attempts at speaking with a mild Texas drawl. Is this the best the Academy Award winner can do, or were the directors trying to be funny? I fear Ethan Maniquis and Robert Rodriguez were NOT trying to be funny. This flaw was made even worse because the rest of the cast all fit their parts well — the Mexicans were very Mexican, the Texans Texan, and then there was Di Niro totally out of place and sounding terrible. I cannot imagine how the directors and producers let this slip by.
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