The Most Badass Mexican in the World

It was a good idea, and it sounded like it, too: What a cult-y thing to do, right, to turn one of the crowd-pleasing faux trailers especially produced for the 2007 Robert Rodriguez/Quentin Tarantino double-bill Grindhouse into a feature all its own!

Too bad that the shtick that worked so well in abbreviated form just doesn’t at more than 100 minutes – sorry, Machete.

The ultra-violent flick starring Danny Trejo, a tremendous presence and ever game for anything guy at 66 years old, plays the titular role, a renegade Mexican federale-turned-vigilante who’s never met a son a bitch he couldn’t slice and dice with mucho gusto.

The man, the legend known as Machete has left his native land and roams the streets of Texas, weathered by the memory of having seen his wife brutally slaughtered by a drug lord played by Steven Seagal.

That’s right: Steven freakin’ Seagal is all up in this joint, which Rodriguez co-directed and features Jessica Alba as an ICE agent, Michelle Rodriguez as a revolutionary, and Lindsay Lohan as a drug-addicted daughter of a crook.

Our anti-hero is trying to stay out of trouble, picking up an odd job here, another one there as a day laborer – all in a day in which Mexicans are being chased and taken out by a convoluted machine that involves a dirty Texan politico (Robert De Niro).

Machete lays on a pretty thick immigration layer. You know, for good measure and relevance.

As you can imagine, old habits die hard, and soon Machete is doing someone else’s bidding after he’s hired to off De Niro’s character.

But then he’s royally pissed when he finds out Seagal’s behind the plot.

Machete don’t like to be anyone’s bitch.

That’s when Machete finally turns into a revenge fantasy, but it’s also around the time you start wishing the guy would just get it over with and be done knifin’. The best idea in this movie is letting it end.

My Rating *1/2

Photo: 20th Century Fox.