Machete Kills

Directed by Robert Rodriguez.

2013. Rated R, 107 minutes.

Cast:

Danny Trejo

Demian Bichir

Mel Gibson

Sofia Vergara

Amber Heard

Charlie Sheen/Carlos Estevez

Michelle Rodriguez

William Sadler

Walton Goggins

Cuba Gooding Jr.

Antonio Banderas

Lady Gaga

Vanessa Hudgens

Jessica Alba

Machete (Trejo), our favorite ex-Federale, is back. As sequels must, things start off on a sour note for our hero as his partner/girlfriend Sartana (Alba) is killed during a bust gone bad. He himself is about to be taken out by corrupt Texas law man Sheriff Doakes (Sadler) (are there any other kind in a Machete movie?), when the phone rings and none other than the Commander-in-Chief himself, Pres. Rathcock (Sheen/Estevez), demands that he be flown to White House immediately. Once there, the president asks Machete to go to Mexico and assassinate Mendez (Birchir), an ex-cartel member who has acquired a nuclear bomb he is threatening to use on the U.S. Machete's pay for this job? His criminal record will be expunged and he will immediately be granted full citizenship in this country. Mayhem ensues.

The citizenship angle is important, or at least it would be, if this were the first movie. That one immersed itself in nearly all of the issues associated with the immigration debate. This one starts down that same road, but it rather quickly detours, concerning itself with being as zany as possible. Unfortunately, what's left has no gravity and our tale goes spinning off into the atmosphere. Literally. As in we wind up in space. Don't worry, that's no spoiler. We are told right at the beginning that the next installment in the franchise will be Machete Kills Again...in Space. Without the weightiness of an issue to hold it together, the movie never connects with us on any level. Its predecessor consistently went hard at the issue it attacked. Even if you disagreed with its basic stance, there was something to grasp. Here, there is not.

Like the first movie, we get a never ending succession of jokes. The difference is that in its predecessor, with the immigration issue as its anchor, it shaped itself into a sharp, if ultra-violent and exploitive, political satire. Instead, this aimlessly throws as much against the wall as it can and hope some of it sticks. Some of it does. Director Rodriguez really stretches his imagination to come up with a plethora of outrageous occurrences. Some of them make us say 'wow,' while others make us laugh. The problem is that rather than being part of a cohesive whole and sustaining its humor, these jokes are all stand alones, fleeting moments of comically presented gore. The one strand of consistency is that no matter where we are in the movie, we'll soon get a reference to an older movie. Most often, and most overtly that reference is to Star Wars. This usually works. Other times, we get the director paying homage to his own past work which is a bit narcissistic, to say the least. This usually doesn't work.

It's not all bad, though. We do have some fun performances. Danny Trejo is once again spot on perfect as the titular Machete. It's a wonderful deadpan that would make Steven Wright proud. YouTube him, young'uns. William Sadler gets to go over the top as that crooked law man and does a nice job. It was nice to see him just cut completely loose. The same can be said for Mel Gibson in a bad guy role. As much as we say we hate him these days, he was pretty good in this flick. Weirdly, Walton Goggins, Cuba Gooding Jr., Antonio Banderas, and Lady Gaga all play the same person (La Cameleon). It doesn't quite fit anything that's going on and is odd more than it is good, but is interesting. For the top prize, there is a tie between Charlie Sheen and Sofia Vergara. Sheen, billed under his birth name of Carlos Estevez in a nod to the whole immigration thing, is wonderfully cast as the most fun president the United States has ever had. While not realistic in any way, he's still a blast to watch. Vergara chews scenery with reckless abandon, playing every scene to the hilt. It helps that she's often outfitted with some of the director's versions of biological weapons, including the pecker gun he used in From Dusk 'Til Dawn. She makes every bit of it work and is the most fun part of the film, along with Sheen.

Machete Kills is a movie I could see some people loving because of the outrageousness of the action, the fun performances, the ridiculous humor, and a few quotable lines ("Machete don't tweet"). For me, it didn't quite come together like it did the first time. Almost all of the focus has been removed in the name of making the sequel a "bigger" movie than its predecessor. It is. The third, if they actually complete it, promises to be even bigger. However, the director has already seemed to lose his way with this franchise. At his best, Rodriguez brings his limitless imagination for morbid, twisted humor and welds it to an intensely focused narrative purpose to create, as our New England friends might say, a wicked good time. This time, the latter part of the equation is missing. There is some fun to be had. However, if you enjoyed the first one, even if you couldn't pinpoint it, you might be struck with the unsettling feeling that something is off. In some instances, way off.

Morgan Freeman Week: The Shawshank Redemption

There are a few different things going on in the universe right now. Though we're nearing the end, it is still Black History Month. I haven't mentioned it before now. Instead, I sheepishly put up a review of Lee Daniels' The Butler yesterday. Next weekend is Oscar Weekend. Still having not seen most of the nominated films, I won't be doing any big Oscar preview like a lot of my fellow bloggers. So, in a trivial nod to both Black History Month and Oscar Weekend, I will dub these last few days of February, and the first couple of March, Morgan Freeman Week. In case you've never seen a movie and somehow missed the pic above, yes he is Black. He has also been nominated for five Academy Awards. He won Best Supporting Actor for his role in Million Dollar Baby which we will not be reviewing this week. We'll start with perhaps his most famous role. It did earn him one of those Oscar noms, but unfortunately, he didn't bring home the gold. That movie is none other than The Shawshank Redemption...

Directed by Frank Darabont.

1994. Rated R, 142 minutes.

Cast:

Tim Robbins

Morgan Freeman

Bob Gunton

Clancy Brown

William Sadler

James Whitmore

Mark Rolston

Gil Bellows

When Andy Dufresne (Robbins) is convicted of murdering his wife and her lover, for which he will serve consecutive life sentences, he is sent to Shawshank to spend the rest of his days. Shawshank is the type of place where a vicious beating from the guards is to be expected for just about any indiscretion. Of course, there are also some rough and tumble characters who try to take whatever it is they want from whomever may have it. As you might suspect of a guy whose been a clean cut banker his whole life, he has a tough time of it early on. Eventually, he joins a small circle of friends. Among them, he is closest to Red (Freeman). Over the next couple decades we watch as their friendship grows and both men go through lots of trials and tribulations. This is based on a Stephen King novella entitled Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption.

Perhaps, the most remarkable thing about this movie is how well it holds together. Every piece of it seems to fit perfectly into the whole. Therefore, even when it does things that seem counter-intuitive, such as having a group of convicted felons as our heroes, it works. Of course, if the cons are the good guys, the warden and the guards are the villains. That's not at all a new thing in cinematic history, but it's never been done better than it is right here. Bob Gunton as Warden Norton and Clancy Brown as Capt. Hadley are so thoroughly detestable it gets to the point where we feel some of the same fear as the inmates whenever we know they're coming. There may be no worse or more helpless feeling than when the persecuted knows that their persecutors are acting with impunity. This is what makes Norton's and Hadley's a tremendously effective combination of antagonist and henchman.

On the other side of things are the guys we love. As Andy, Robbins gives arguably the best performance of his career. He's a guy who seems aloof at times, but really has the best interest of others at heart. Yes, there is a bit of selfishness present. He wants his fellow prisoners to experience as many things as possible that people in the free world enjoy. Freedom, and the pursuit of it, is an enormous theme in this film. This pursuit helps him feel normal. He likes feeling normal. He also likes thinking. There is always something going on beneath the surface. Robbins clearly shows this. As his main cohort, Freeman is just wonderful. His easy-going way, and ability to get stuff, make him a perfect companion for Andy. We see the two men become much more than business associates without really saying so to each other for a very long time. The look on Red's face often shows us this. Most interestingly, Freeman uses a variety of smiles to subtly create emotion. These aren't clownish grins and obvious acting tactics, but sly positioning of his facial features that suggests something different than the smile he wears a scene before or later. It's an amazing piece of work by Freeman.

Across the board, the acting is outstanding. This includes a never-better William Sadler and James Whitmore, part of the small circle of friends that includes Andy and Red. But acting isn't all there is here. The story just moves along so effortlessly it's impossible not to get pulled along. Then, somehow, it suddenly injects mystery in the third act. Usually, movies can't do this effectively. It's either suspenseful from the start or not at all. Here, things just seem to be moseying along, albeit not in our guys' favor, then we're suddenly not sure what will happen next. It works good enough that what Andy does tends to be the only part of the film most people remember.

Following Andy's escapades, the movie goes on a little while longer. I can see why some think it goes too long and that it's entirely too sappy. It is sappy. In this case, however, it works because we've come to know these guys so well that we yearn for it to work out this way. Truthfully, it could have ended earlier. I am a guy who is quite okay with a less than happy ending. Some films just have to have a feel good ending, though. This is one of them. Do I believe it's the best movie ever made, as readers of imdb.com have ranked it? No. However, it is certainly a modern classic and I wouldn't fault anyone who did have it as their number one.

MY SCORE: 10/10

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Man on a Ledge

Iron Man 3

The Hills Run Red

Director: Dave Parker.
2009. Rated R, 81 minutes.
Cast:
Tad Hilgenbrink
Sophie Monk
William Sadler
Janet Montgomery

Plot: Avid horror movie buff Tyler (Hilgenbrink) convinces his girlfriend and best friend to go on a journey deep into the woods to find a long lost slasher flick from the 1980s.

The Good: It knows what it is and what its purpose is so it keeps the pedal to the metal right from the start. What that means is even during the early parts we would expect to be slow the director is doing everything he can to hold your attention. Every minute or two we get random shots, supposedly from the missing movie, of someone getting an axe to the head, or their body torn in half or otherwise mutilated. And of course, there's a fair amount of female bare-chestedness. Gratuitous isn't a strong enough word for what's going on here. Narratively, its actually pretty solid as meat grinders go, setting us up nicely for the twist at about the 2/3 mark.

The Bad: With that twist comes huge, gaping plotholes that are never closed. Worse than this is like most hack 'em ups, it never engages us on any intrinsic level so actually scaring its audience is out of the question. It just repeatedly tries to jolt and/or repulse you. The problem than becomes there's so much of it early on, we've already become numb to it by the time the movie wants to shift us into overdrive. Another issue is our hero, Tyler. The movie wants you to empathize with him but its hard to because he's both a moron and a jerk. About five minutes in, I started wishing hard for his not-so-swift and extremely bloody death.

The Ugly: How our homicidal maniac, Babyface (Danko Jordanov), gets his name is ugly. How he came to be born is far uglier. Ewww.

Recommendation: This is absolutely, positively strictly for slasher/gore fans. If you're the type of person who just has to see every Saw movie and got excited when you found out the remake to My Bloody Valentine was not only going to be indeed bloody, but in 3-D, this is for you. If you're not, don't even think about it.

The Opposite View: Slasher flicks get a pass, here.

What the Internet Says: 5.6/10 on imdb.com, 50% on rottentomatoes.com, NA on metacritic.com

MY SCORE: 4/10

SLASHER MOVIE SCORE: 7/10