Machete (2010)

Machete is a low-budget throwback to the 70' s drive-in cinema. It's very grainy and looks as if it was shot with an 8mm camera and the audio seems as if it is noticeably separate from the film. Danny Trejo plays Machete a Mexican drug enforcement officer who would rather use machetes than a gun. However the evil Torres (Stephen Segal) sets up Machete and murders his family in front of him and leaves him wounded and broken left alive only to suffer over the loss of his family. The film then skips forward some to find Machete looking for work as an illegal immigrant just across the Mexican border into Texas. Unable to find enough work to support himself he's approached by a man(Jeff Fahey) with a briefcase full of money and all he has to do to get it is kill the Mexican hating Sen. Mclaughlin(Robert De Niro) but what machete doesn't know is the man with the briefcase is setting him up to get caught attempting to kill the senator which will get sympathy for the senator. Now he must join a band of rebels to stop the senator and his shoot first ask questions later order patrol.

I have seen most of Robert Rodriguez's movies so I wasn't expecting big-budget special effects or anything like that but I've been reading about this movie for almost a year and was pretty excited to see it. From the previews and what I have read online I didn't know exactly what to expect from the plot other than it was Danny Trejo kicking ass with a machete and that was enough to get my mouth watering. However within the first five minutes of the movie there was an absurd amount of CGI for my taste anyways. I expected a lot of cheesy effects and maybe not so realistic looking kills and that would have been forgivable but the excessive amount of CGI really turned me off.

As for the plot itself it wasn't bad but there were not any really shocking or surprising twists or turns. There were a few funny scenes between Danny Trejo and Cheech Marin. There's also a good deal of full frontal nudity which didn't add or take away anything from the film. Unfortunately none of the nude scenes involved Michelle Rodriguez or Jessica Alba. You do get to see a little bit of side nudity of Jessica Alba but it's only enough to make you want to see more. To be honest I hated the ending. I don't want to give away any spoilers but I just didn't get it at all. That being said this movie is pretty much for men. I doubt women would enjoy this movie at all.

What I found most intriguing about Machete before I saw it was the ensemble cast. First off the star of the movie Danny Trejo has been in almost 200 films. He usually just has a cameo or supporting role but is always noticeable. Then you have big names like Robert De Niro, Don Johnson, and Stephen Segal. Then throw in Michelle Rodriguez, Jessica Alba, and Lindsay Lohan. Then you can't forget cameos by Tom Savini and Cheech Marin. I mean if you're a fan of horror and action movies the cast list screams watch me.

As much as I love Danny Trejo I just couldn't get into machete. Which I think was due mostly in part to all the CGI. Like I said before I could have forgiven cheesy special effects but the CGI that was used wasn't even good CGI. That kills remind me of the fatalities in the videogame Mortal Kombat and that's fine for a videogame but it doesn't look right in a movie. Overall it was just okay for me it's not something I'd want to add to my DVD library and it's probably not something I would watch again. I'd give it 2.5/5 stars.