Once Upon a Time in Mexico 2003
This is the third installment of a series of low-budget movies about a Mexcian gunman known only as El Mariachi. I’ve seen the first two installments, but I didn’t remember much about them other than that they were stylistic action pictures. You don’t need to see the first two either. In fact, the background that you need pertains to a movie in between the second and third that was never made, but is fleshed out through a number of flashbacks.
The movie doesn’t take itself seriously, but still provides a good, albeit generic, plot: a coup in Mexico is being planned by a drug lord using a deposed military leader with further intrigue coming from a renegade CIA agent and the aforementioned gunman. Johnny Depp, as the CIA agent, brings most of the comic relief as a gonzo CIA agent committed to maintaining balance. In one scene he wears a t-shirt with C-I-A in giant letters perhaps harkening back to Out of Sight where Michael Keaton in an ATF jacket is asked with sarcastic disdain if he is undercover.
The main star of the movie is Antonio Banderas as El Mariachi. With just about everyone in the movie out to kill him, he is constantly in fights and chase scenes. And these are the raison d'etre for the movie. Completely unbelievable, but great to watch, these action sequences are the source of entertainment with the plot serving to connect the pieces. They are a lot of fun to watch whether it is Salma Hayeck thowing three knives, simulatenously killing 3 bad guys, or the use of high-powered bullets that knock people across the room. There are at least two car crashes where it looks like the stuntmen were intentionally killed.
Between the interwoven story lines, smart dialog, explosive action scenes, and stellar cast, it is hard not to be entertained by this movie through its entire length. But just as interesting is the story of the director, writer, composer, editor Robert Rodriguez which is told by Rodriguez himself in the DVD extras. Most of his house appears to have been turned into production facilities and he shows you how, by rolling across the garage in his chair, he can transition from being an editor to composer. He’s like a magician giving away his secrets as we see him compose music from pre-recorded snippets or as he shows us how to do stunts and special effects on the cheap (the first movie, El Mariachi, was made for $7,000 by cartoonist (at the time) Rodriguez to sell on the Mexican direct-to-video market). The movie is worth watching, but the DVD really adds to it.
B+