UK RELEASE DATE - 26th November 2010.

In Argentine Spanish, MACHETE is slang for a crib sheet school-kids use to cheat in exams providing all the salient facts on a subject. What could be a more perfect description of one of the mock trailer highlights showcased between PLANET TERROR and DEATH PROOF in Quentin Tarantino’s maligned GRINDHOUSE project?

For in GRINDHOUSE, the ‘Coming Soon’ MACHETE was Mexploitation gore, violence and action reduced to his most basic OTT components. Problems are endemic because director Robert Rodriguez has had to fill in the gaps for the long-promised, super-sized MACHETE because it does feel somewhat over-extended in full feature form. It took three years, but here’s the scattershot 70s style exploitation goods delivered with appropriate gusto and starring Danny Trejo, Rodriguez’ second cousin, whose role in DESPERADO (‘Navajas’ – knives) first led to the Machete character in the SPY KIDS franchise. Now the character has been born-again as the matted-haired, leather-faced, ex-Federale hitman turned violent crusader on behalf of his fellow illegal immigrants. Like all the best exploitation, the plot is a mess and makes no real sense. Hired to kill racist Senator Robert De Niro by sleazy businessman Jeff Fahey, Machete learns too late it’s a double-cross, forcing him underground, where he gets involved with an organised network of illegal immigrants led by leather bikini-clad revolutionary Michelle Rodriguez. Beautiful Customs agent Jessica Alba is in pursuit of them all and so is drug lord Steven Seagal (channelling Marlon Brando circa 1975) who killed Machete’s family before the opening credits. Don Johnson as a Latino-hating border patrol officer and Lindsay Lohan as a junkie hellraiser don’t do their reputations any favours in Rodriguez’ relentless onslaught of cartoon violence, extreme bloodletting (the intestinal escape rope is brilliant), gratuitous nudity and cheap tabloid laughs. Political satire sweetens a bumpy ride that hews well to each exploitation given - the cheesy one-liners (“Machete don’t text”), every gorgeous babe has the hots for the stone-faced anti-hero and the climax being dragged out. But frankly MACHETE is virtually critic-proof because its antecedents were too – it was only people like me who searched them out to review back then. So on the set-piece front MACHETE cuts a swathe using any and all sharp objects and Rodriguez puts it altogether with his usual low-budget élan. The fake scratches and faded look do make it feel like a lost movie from that golden Grindhouse era despite nothing from the time ever being this self-aware or really that professional.

Will the two sequels MACHETE KILLS and MACHETE KILLS AGAIN promised in the closing credits materialise? Let’s hope so as then Rodriguez can get it exactly right the second and third time.

Alan Jones.

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