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A while ago this thing called Grindhouse came out, which was two movies by different directors, tossed together as a double feature, intentionally going for this ultra cheesy late 70's/early 80's sorta vibe. For some reason I only ever saw one of them (Planet Terror) but the important thing here is, they made a few fake previews for other movies as part of the overall gag. Then a while later the director looked at those and said "hey, you know what? This one here is cheesy enough I think we really need to make it." So he did. And now I get to sit here and watch Machete.
We start in a conveniently labelled "Mexico", with subtitles, as our oh so leathery protagonist and... some guy, are doing the standard renegade cops who play by their own rules deal. But, you know, in Mexico. Mexico of course apparently consisting of a single pathetic shantytown in the middle of nowhere. After Machete here smashed the cellphone with his boss telling them to wait for backup, he drives through a bunch of dudes firing machine guns at them, killing partner, heads into some Bad Dudes' shack, and starts in with the crazy violence. It's kinda like Axe Cop, in that he's a cop and he chops a bunch of guys heads off.
Then, right on schedule, boobs by paragraph 3! Specifically, he's here to arrest this here nude girl. It's a trap though! She pretends to seduce him, steals his machete, stabs him, and then calls in her evil master Steven Seagal, who gives a badguy speech, chops his wife's head off with a katana, and sets him on fire. Then come the opening credits. See, here's the thing with Robert Rodriguez. When he wants to do cheesy action? He delivers the goods. There is more shlocky amusement already under our belts already than in the entirety of, say, The Expendables. He also makes really @#$%ed up movies based on scripts written by his 10 year old kid now and then... which is another excuse to make an Axe Cop reference really.
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Now we're slowing down a little, here's Jessica Alba, best known as the girl from Idle Hands... no? OK, best known as the girl from that weird cyberpunk ninja show? Uh... Invisible Woman from Fantastic 4? Nancy from Sin City? There's a lot of people in this who do a lot of stuff I'm likely to cover here. Anyway, she's some customs officer spying on Machete as he day labors. Now we're cutting over to oh wow. Senator Robert DeNiro running for re-election on a campaign of straight-up murdering Mexicans who sneak over the border into Texas to have babies. Meanwhile, Machete is street fighting for extra money. Well, street dodging really. The other guy just eventually smashes his hand on a metal beam.
Oh yeah, and here's another character. By day, she runs a taco and coffee stand, but by night, she's apparently the superhero She, who... sneaks people in from Mexico while dressed like Gestapoko with an AK-47. By the way, this movie is very yellow. Now here's some sinister dude. He wants to hire Machete to kill Robert DeNiro, because if he deports all Mexicans, sleazy businessmen like him can't exploit them for cheap labor! Of course, he's offering one of said Mexicans a hundred grand to accomplish this. So... I guess an American assassin wout cost like, a million dollars then? Anyway yeah, he gives him a big ol' pile of guns to chose from the accomplish his task. He takes one, along with a machete, because, you know, it's kinda his thing. He's named after one and everything. Then Sleazy Business Guy leaves, having to go kill a bunch of dudes and pick up his druggy girlfriend from a meth lab. I guess all the killing is to avoid a scandal. Oh and sorry, his druggy daughter.
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Machete immediately gives the money to She to aid her cause, and then goes off to kill the senator. Also holy cow that's a good accent from DeNiro there. It's rare to see a movie where he bothers to really act these days, I forgot he's really good at it when so inclined. Anyway, we apparently have some sort of crazy conspiracy here, where right before the snipes the senator, a second assassin takes a shot at him, then the senator's leg, he's pointed out by Business Guy. Then as he's fleeing, he's picked up by fake cops. They forget to search him for weapons though, so he stabs them through their seat, and leaps free before the car explodes. Now Business Guy is sending the video to Steven Seagal, who's hanging out with a new topless girl. Did I mention he shot his last one in the head to prove he was evil?
Anyway, Machete is rescued by the secret illegal alien network's secret hospital workers. It turns out the only reason he survived being shot was that the bullet ricochetted off another bullet already lodged in him. Bad guys arrive though to finish him off. The Doctor sees him reaching for impromptu weapons on the table, and goes "oh you don't want to touch those! They're incredibly sharp and designed to pass through human flesh like butter!" He takes a bunch of scalpels, ties them to the end of a cloth belt, and makes this... slicey-whip deal. Then he kills some dudes, and makes use of the doctor's random forced fun fact about how long human intestines are to cut some guy and swing down out of the window on his intestines. She is appraised of the situation as she's practicing martial arts on her off band Wii Fit. So she goes off to rescue him more. Oh hi Chekov's corkscrew.
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Now we slow down a bit for some dialog. Just a little bit though. Not enough for me to catch my breath and actually explain it. Here's Customs Girl taking a shower, then finally getting around to looking up who Machete is. Now here's Business Guy's daughter bragging to him about being a Camwhore. Now here's... this guy. He's uh... Business Guy's real hitman I think? Anyway, he's got a pretty groovy car, and he's looking for where She lives to kill Machete. Remember the corkscrew? Yeah, that pays off in this fight scene. Anyway, dudes are chopped up, the shack is blown up with a bomb, and a corpse with a meat thermometer in it lands on Customs Girl's car. She apparently got the memo that he's the main character though, so she wants to work with him. Things are discussed.
Steven Seagal and Business Guy video chat about how hitman failed, and Business Guy is all, "oh yeah, I kill my failed henchmen too, see!" So now they're going to hire a better hitman. Tom Savini? Man, this movie is just filled to the brim with people schlocky nerds are amused to see in movies. And now here's She gathering some guys an showing them her big pile'o'guns with which to do the big ol' fight scene later, but... here's Customs Girl swinging by to... again, not arrest people, because... OK, at this point? I have to assume she secretly has the Detect Alignment spell or something. I love how much this movie embraces stupid plot devices honestly.
Oh hey, here's a bit from the original joke trailer. Machete is going to meet his brother, Father Cheech, to request his aid in killing bad guys. Cheech has surveillance stuff and recordings of confessions and is otherwise a really good informant type. He also has pot, because, well, it's Cheech. Anyway, Machete takes his suped up hearse, drives right up to Business Jerk's mansion, and walks right past the security guards, as he has gardening tools. The guards totally lampshade this, talking about how man, security guards are totally prone to letting Mexicans with gardening tools through gates all the time, not even checking if they have machetes or chainsaws or anything. He doesn't though, he just has a weed whacker. Which he uses to slap their hands away from their guns until they just give up on fighting him off.
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Turns out Business Guy's wife and daughter were planning to film a three-way with the real gardener in the pool and put it on the internet. Machete shows up and he's all... well, yeah, why not? So before kidnapping them, he has sex with them and sends the camera to Business Guy. He also grabs a bunch of intimidating evidence to bring to Customs Girl. The file decrypting password is I [heart] [daughter]. Wow. Anyway, there's a whole bunch of incriminating here, and a cheesy video of a plan to build an electrified border fence, but with a few blatant holes in it, so Business Guy can secure his personal labor force still. Then the corrupt border cop shoots She in the eye. That was... kinda out of the blue there.
Oh, now Tom Savini is finally showing up, with a bunch of goons and guns, barging into Cheech's church. He sees them coming, grabs a pair of shotguns, and delivers a cheesy one-liner, and blow two dudes' heads up simultaneously firing over his shoulders around a pillar, but is, of course, bested by Tom Savini. He shoots him in the knee, disarms him, and he's tied to the cross to be interrogated by Business Guy. He's not talking so they're properly crucifying him to get him to talk. Ooh, that's proper wrist crucifiction too, not the sissy palm sort. Machete meanwhile is, of course, sleeping with Customs Girl. Which naturally ads into a crazy fight scene against luchadore ninjas. Customs Girl kills one with shoes, all American Maid style. So yeah, realizing there's danger, they go to check on Cheech. He is of course, unfortunately dead. Still has cameras all over though.
In Bad Guy Land, Steven Seagal says he wants to come along and kill Machete himself, because hey, he IS the main bad guy and all. Then there's a pretty amusing bit of all Business Guy's security guards sitting around talking about how unfair it is that say laborers don't get citizenship and about how yeah, Machete beat them up, but just because he was after their boss, and honestly, he's a total jerk. So when he shows up again they're all "Yeah, we talked it over, and we're all just going to quit. No need to fight through us." Convenient. Less convenient: Having all the blatant evidence of you being horrible aired during your big re-election press conference. Turns out DeNiro actually wasn't in on all this and is pretty horrified to see his right hand guy did all this for his benefit without saying anything. So he shoots him. Because, you know, it's what you do. Then Machete shows up to kill him, but, he's kind of already dying. Oh and by "shows up to kill him" I mean he's wearing a vest covered in knives and holding a giant Machete in each hand. He's all "Wait, before you kill us, where are my wife and daughter?" "With God." He didn't actually kill'em though, he just dumped'em at his brother's church, and they've just been passed out this whole time. Daughter kinda pieces the plot together though, and apparently will next appear as some sort of vengeful fake nun. Always fun.
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Anyway, She's wacky gang offers Machete their aid, which leads into a nifty little Gearing Up Montage, where they're outfitting a car with gatling guns and presumably also lowrider suspension. Meanwhile Customs Girl is giving a cheesy speech outside to inspire an impromptu day laborer militia. "We didn't cross the border! The border crossed us!" And yeah. The custom war cars are all bouncing on their way to the final battle. Awesome. It's so weird that that's a thing really. Oh and Senator DeNiro is being executed by his corrupt border patrol apparently, who are also upset about not being in on this whole scheme. Or he would be, but we've got this fight scene breaking out. Rednecks vs. Gardeners, go! And... Machete now has a machete that's like, 4 feet long, and lowriders are pounchng on people, who then Wilheim Scream. And oh yeah, here's the medical team, showing up to add in machine gun toting nurses, bandage up the wounded, and, of course, deliver Not Really Dead She, with eyepatch and black leather bra instead of shirt. So the good guys generally win, and rescue the senator because, well, he's had a chance at some character growth I guess. They give him a pancho, hat, and gun, and let him join in. Machete incidentally is now on a rocket jumping motorcycle with a gatling gun. Oh and hey, here comes Vengeful Daughter in nurse habit! She... wait, she kills her dad. What was her motivation again? I seem to have missed it. The lead redneck of course gets to be killed by She, and now we're just going to toss in our big duel between Machete and Steven Seagal. Did I mention that every time it shows his katana it makes the Six Million Dollar Man noise by the way? Because it does. Oh, and he has two it seems. Both are fighting all Florentine, until blades break.
Machete eventually runs Seagal through. He goes "You know, I could still just kill you at this point. But then I'd probably have to fight you again in hell." Machete nods, so he just goes all sepuku instead. Then everyone gets to do cool victory poses. And also Senator DeNiro somehow survives, having been wearing a bulletproof vest, but, ironically, is killed by border patrolling rednecks while attempting to sneak into Mexico. And Customs Gal obtains citizenship for Machete, but he doesn't especially care because he wants to ride off into the sunset to deliver vaguely defined justice where ever. She's pretty cool with that option too, and decides to come along. "MACHETE will return in MACHETE KILLS and MACHETE KILLS AGAIN." This James Bond-iness presumably is just a joke, but hey! The trailer for this was supposed to just be a joke too, so who knows!
Anyway yeah. I remain, as always, not a fan of random nudity, but that movie was pretty much all I expected it to be. And oh hey, this movie is apparently yet another entry in the list of DVDs who had all their special features ripped out to push Bluray. I didn't have time for a commentary track tonight or anything, but that's still lame.
