Machete (2010)

Elevator Pitch: After a brutal event in  his past Machete becomes an itinerant worker in Texas, before being picked up to assassinate a right wing senator whose platform is the prevention of immigration. But the job is a setup and Machete only just escapes with his life, and thereafter is pursued by Booth, the man who hired him, his boss Torrez and others. He manages to gain the assistance of Sartana Rivera, a policewoman and Luz, the leader of an immigrant aide network and together they take on the vigilantes, Machete, seducing Booth’s wife and daughter on the way.

Content: In the opening moments of the movie there is a young woman who is so naked that when she gets her cell phone out you momentarily wonder where she had been keeping it. Later a bit more nudity and implied sexual activity. But in the main endless brutality with edged weapons, hand guns, machine guns and sniper rifles. People are eviscerated and beheaded. The senator suggested having an electric fence between Mexico and Texas (sounds familiar!). There are also scenes of immigrants being gunned down on the border by vigilantes. The vigilante’s compound is attacked by the immigrant force, mostly driving those odd bouncing cars.

A View: By now we have seen a lot of Danny Trejo, said by some film buffs to be the actor killed off most in all movie history. We remember his departure in one episode of Breaking Bad. Now, he is the hero in a Grindhouse movie featuring all the violence, blood and nudity that it is possible to fit into an hour and forty-five minutes. Almost predictably it was well liked by the critics, who go along with the whole Grindhouse thing, and it made money against an estimated $10 million production budget. I did not like the bouncing cars, but other than that I kept being entertained, so if Grindhouse lights your fire, worth the cost of a download.

Additional Info: Apparently Robert Rodriguez was told by his sister, a co-editor, to add more “hot chicks”. So he did.