"Machete" is a movie made by people who love movies, it's a tribute to classic Grindhouse movies, in fact, its origin comes from the movie experience of the same name. One of the creators of "Grindhouse" was Robert Rodriguez, who's "Planet Terror" was the first of the double feature along with Quentin Tarantino's "Death Proof". If you were lucky enough to see "Grindhouse" in the theatre, you would've seen the fake movie trailer for "Machete".
After seeing the trailer, fans and fans must've wrote in to Rodriguez wondering if he ever was going to make the feature length film; whatever the case may be, it worked.
"Machete" is the title characters named, played here by Danny Trejo, a mainstay in many action movies, often playing the heavy, or the badass, he's got the kind of face that looks like it has been run over, but also one that could just look mean the instant you said something nasty to him.
Machete is a former Mexican Federale, his wife and daughter were brutally killed by Mexican drug kingpin (Steven Seagal). Three years later, Machete is on the streets of Texas trying to get work anyway he can. When a greasy man in a limo (Jeff Fahey) sees him in a street fight one day, he hires him as an assassin to kill a Senator (Robert De Niro) who is a strong advocate for tougher immigration laws.
But Machete is doublecrossed, turns out this was all a ploy for the Senator to win by a sympathy vote, soon Machete plots for revenge to all the men who have wronged him, lucky for him, they all seem to be connected.
Machete has many sidekicks along the way to help him, including Michelle Rodriguez who runs an underground resistance for Mexican immigrants, Jessica Alba as an ICE Agent who falls for Machete's charm, and Cheech Marin as his brother who used to fight with him, but has since become a priest.
"Machete" is full of all out, over the top violence, where people from "Grindhouse" would remember, but it's all tongue and cheek and cartoonish, it's never taken seriously. There is one scene where Machete uses the intestines of a man he just cut open to swing from one level of a building to the next, he gets this idea from a doctor who explains that human intestines can stretch out up to forty feet.
The elements are all there, and Rodriguez captures the spirit of the type these types of movies, which he seems to be making over and over again, when he isn't making his "Spy Kids" movies.
Everyone is in on the fun, and hooray for Lindsay Lohan who shows up and plays a character that may be poking fun at her own image, but she may just be laughing along with everyone else.
"Machete" is a nice schlock entertainment, although the grande finale fails to ignite by perhaps putting away the bad guys a little too nicely and neatly, there doesn't seem to be a payoff, however, Machete is off to fight another day, he even gets the girl in the end, and of course there's promise of not one but two sequels, huzzah!
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