Machete

20th Century Fox

Blu Ray Region A and Digital Copy

Robert Rodriguez of Sin City and Grindhouse is well known for his love of genre and B grade cinema and Machete is the ultimate homage to the vigilante film. Originally Machete appeared as a two minute short on the Grindhouse double bill but now Rodriguez has gone all the way.

Machete is a sort of cowboys and Indians tale where the cowboys are white racists and the Indians are Mexican immigrants. The plot, of course, is far more complicated than it first seems.

Machete (Danny Trejo) is an immigration officer on the Mexican side of the border, he is one of a kind in that he is honest and does his job with integrity. When he interferes once too often with a drug operation he is brought face to face with the leading drug lord Torrez (Steven Sega) who kills his wife and daughter before his eyes. His career is also destroyed as his immediate superiors are all in on the racket.

Three years later and he is working illegally in Texas. Politics are hot this election Senator McLaughlin is talking tough and working with border patrols to stop illegal immigrants entering the country. But there is a second agenda, McLaughlin and his cohorts are involved in drug importation and with the border closed and protected by an electric fence they can control the drug importation and you guessed it their supplier on the Mexican side is none other than Torrez.

McLaughlin’s offsider hires a local worker to take a potshot at McLaughlin to make sure he gets the sympathy vote and wins the election. The problem is that he doesn’t recent that the man he has hired is Machete and he is set on revenge. Soon the blood begins to be spilt with more slicing and dicing than you can dream of. Machete is out for revenge and won’t stop until he can get it. There are some scenes which could shock and offend, a priest nailed to a cross, nuns shooting guns, and using a length of bowel to jump out of a hospital window.

Along the way there are lots of fun supporting characters, Don Johnson as a redneck border patrol leader, Cheech Marin as the gun wielding priest who keeps digital back-ups of the confessions he hears and Michelle Rodriguez as Luz who later becomes one eye. A nod to the cult revenge film “They call her one eye”.

This could be taken as a polemical film, but is really is a throwback to the old revenge films where everything is exaggerated. The Mexicans are violent and out of control, the politicians are corrupt and stupid and the Texans are rednecks and racists. Machete is violent yet the violent are drawn to him like a magnet, this is nearly two hours of over the top gore, bloodshed, action and madness. It is about as perfect as a genre film you can get.

The Blu Ray is as clear as can be, indeed the gore is so realistic you want to look away, but of course you don’t. The HD DD 5.1 creates an amazing sound environment which envelopes you in action as well as a truly outrageous cult movie score.

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