Movie Review: Machete

Synopsis: After being betrayed by the organization who hired him, an ex-Federale (Danny Trejo) launches a brutal rampage of revenge against his former boss.

If you remember the retro-exploitation b-movie double-feature Grindhouse by Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez 3 or 4 years ago you might remember the faux trailer for Machete. Well, believe it or not they actually went ahead and made the movie and it's just exactly what I expected... corny, messy, cheap, violent, tasteless... and outrageously awesome at times. There's a whole boatload of violence, gore and gratuitous nudity and that's all just sort of precisely the point.

With a cast that includes Danny Trejo, Cheech Marin, Steven Seagal (yes, Steven f'n Seagal!!), Michelle Rodriguez, Jeff Fahey, Jessica Alba, Don Johnson (!!!), Lindsey Lohan and Robert De Niro, was there was ever any doubt it would be a blast? All seem to overact on cue and appear to have a cheesy good time dropping some deadpan lines. It adds to the whole self-awareness of the film.

So what's wrong with it? Well, like I said it's really just a 90-minute version of the trailer, so by the end it was wearing a bit thin. There's sure not a lot of depth or anything. I guess there's some subtext of politics and anti-immagration laws and such, but I was too busy laughing at the tongue-in-cheek action to care. Entertaining yes, but there's not much more too it. Still, it's probably got more brains and fun than most of the flicks that hit the theaters anymore.

7/10