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Once Upon a Time in Mexico (**1/2 out of **** stars)
Antonio Banderas, Johnny Depp, Willem Dafoe, Salma Hayek
In Robert Rodriguez’s Mexico, the general populace has more than a passing familiarity with guns, guitars, and revenge, not necessarily in that order. And it’s well for us, if not them, that this is the case.
The opening credits of Once Upon a Time in Mexico state that this is “A Robert Rodriguez Flick,” and that is both an honest acknowledgement and a sly one. No, Once Upon a Time in Mexico is not a “film,” thank the Lord. It is a flick—unabashedly so—and an engaging and exciting one, at that.
Anyone who is familiar with Rodriguez’s pre-Spy Kids work knows the drill: this is a sequel that almost isn’t, much as Desperado was to El Mariachi. Continuity is not really an issue here, and that’s all to the good. Otherwise we wouldn’t get to enjoy lovely new cameos by Rodriguez regulars Cheech Marin and Danny Trejo, whose previous characters in the trilogy were both killed in Desperado. And we also wouldn’t get the seeds for the backstory—shown in regularly scheduled flashbacks—that newly torments our gun-slinging mariachi, now known mostly as El. As in “The.”
Here’s the set-up, so to speak:
El Mariachi is in seclusion in a village that seems to exist only to make guitars, when he is pulled out by rogue CIA agent Sands (an electrifyingly smarmy Depp) for the legendary “one last job”: killing the very corrupt General Marquez (Gerardo Vigil), the man who murdered El’s wife and child. El agrees, both for long-overdue vengeance and for immunity from the new regime, but there is a catch—El can only kill the General after the General stages and completes a coup d’etat by killing the President of Mexico, a coup designed and funded by Barillo (Dafoe), soulless kingpin extraordinaire. Barillo wants both the President and the General dead so he can become the shadow controller of Mexico; Sands, however, is only going along with this so he can take the money promised to the General for killing the President, although he dresses this up a bit with some stuff about wanting to “keep the balance” in Mexico.
Still with me? I hope so, because it only gets more tangled from here on in.
There are problems with both the plot and the otherwise-witty script, boiling down to the one that plagued Rodriguez’s previous trilogy-ender, Spy Kids 3-D: too many characters running around, resulting in the underuse of potentially more interesting subplots. However, here that “problem” turns into an advantage of sorts, layering the basic plot with so many agendas that you’d need a global positioning system to figure out the “bad” guys and the “good” guys at any given time. And somewhere between all the double- and triple-crosses--not to mention some cringe-inducing plastic surgery disasters--we get to see some excellent performances in those all-important supporting roles.
Banderas, once again, fully embodies his role as El, but the movie isn’t really about him; likewise for Hayek, reprising her role as Carolina. In the motley crew of seediness that is the rest of our characters, we have Billy (Mickey Roarke), Barillo’s American heavy-with-a-conscience; Jorge (Ruben Blades), a retired FBI agent who has a score to settle with Barillo; Ajedrez (Eva Mendes), an agent who both conspires with Sands and who has an agenda of her own; and Lorenzo (Enrique Iglesias [!]) and Fideo (Marco Leonardi), El’s two partners/proteges in gun-toting mariachi-ness.
The majority of the actors are well-used, particularly Blades and Roarke—who, while sometimes verbally incoherent, gives Billy an over-the-hill weariness that is all too genuine. The only serious miscast here is the usually unmiscastable Dafoe, who in his role as Barillo adopts what can only be termed as a horrendously overdone accent. He’s more seen than heard, though.
Rodriguez’s real coup, cast-wise, is Johnny Depp—who, as he did earlier this year in Pirates of the Caribbean, steals the show as Sands, the morally flexible axis upon which this wheel of corruption turns. Sands becomes an interestingly sympathetic character, exuding oily charm, smart-ass sensibilities, and a casual propensity for violence. And his final vengeance-fueled turn—after having double-crossed himself into a rendezvous with a precisely wielded drill—is one of the most brilliant moves in the twisted plot.
As an action flick, Once Upon a Time in Mexico shines. The action here is stylized and often viciously hilarious, with a church gun battle and a wonderfully executed (and strategically brief) car chase as two key scenes. The final third of the film is awash in guns and gore as the coup is set in motion and El makes his move to save the President, but Depp once again takes center stage as the ocularly deficient underdog—attired all in black, pistolero-style, for his final showdown.
If there is one area in which Rodriguez ups his Desperado-ante and fails, it is in the political/patriotic overtones that take precedence in the last half of the movie. Here we have that extra pinch of salt that almost spoils the soup, making an ambiguous tale of violent revenge a statement about… pride in one’s country? No. It’s a turn that might have been interesting had we any hint that it was coming, but has no real impact on the story itself.
This doesn’t ruin the ride, however. We may not care overly much about El’s latent Mexican patriotism, but we get plenty of what we do care about: the guns, the guitars, and the vengeance… and not necessarily in that order.
Antonio Banderas, Johnny Depp, Willem Dafoe, Salma Hayek
In Robert Rodriguez’s Mexico, the general populace has more than a passing familiarity with guns, guitars, and revenge, not necessarily in that order. And it’s well for us, if not them, that this is the case.
The opening credits of Once Upon a Time in Mexico state that this is “A Robert Rodriguez Flick,” and that is both an honest acknowledgement and a sly one. No, Once Upon a Time in Mexico is not a “film,” thank the Lord. It is a flick—unabashedly so—and an engaging and exciting one, at that.
Anyone who is familiar with Rodriguez’s pre-Spy Kids work knows the drill: this is a sequel that almost isn’t, much as Desperado was to El Mariachi. Continuity is not really an issue here, and that’s all to the good. Otherwise we wouldn’t get to enjoy lovely new cameos by Rodriguez regulars Cheech Marin and Danny Trejo, whose previous characters in the trilogy were both killed in Desperado. And we also wouldn’t get the seeds for the backstory—shown in regularly scheduled flashbacks—that newly torments our gun-slinging mariachi, now known mostly as El. As in “The.”
Here’s the set-up, so to speak:
El Mariachi is in seclusion in a village that seems to exist only to make guitars, when he is pulled out by rogue CIA agent Sands (an electrifyingly smarmy Depp) for the legendary “one last job”: killing the very corrupt General Marquez (Gerardo Vigil), the man who murdered El’s wife and child. El agrees, both for long-overdue vengeance and for immunity from the new regime, but there is a catch—El can only kill the General after the General stages and completes a coup d’etat by killing the President of Mexico, a coup designed and funded by Barillo (Dafoe), soulless kingpin extraordinaire. Barillo wants both the President and the General dead so he can become the shadow controller of Mexico; Sands, however, is only going along with this so he can take the money promised to the General for killing the President, although he dresses this up a bit with some stuff about wanting to “keep the balance” in Mexico.
Still with me? I hope so, because it only gets more tangled from here on in.
There are problems with both the plot and the otherwise-witty script, boiling down to the one that plagued Rodriguez’s previous trilogy-ender, Spy Kids 3-D: too many characters running around, resulting in the underuse of potentially more interesting subplots. However, here that “problem” turns into an advantage of sorts, layering the basic plot with so many agendas that you’d need a global positioning system to figure out the “bad” guys and the “good” guys at any given time. And somewhere between all the double- and triple-crosses--not to mention some cringe-inducing plastic surgery disasters--we get to see some excellent performances in those all-important supporting roles.
Banderas, once again, fully embodies his role as El, but the movie isn’t really about him; likewise for Hayek, reprising her role as Carolina. In the motley crew of seediness that is the rest of our characters, we have Billy (Mickey Roarke), Barillo’s American heavy-with-a-conscience; Jorge (Ruben Blades), a retired FBI agent who has a score to settle with Barillo; Ajedrez (Eva Mendes), an agent who both conspires with Sands and who has an agenda of her own; and Lorenzo (Enrique Iglesias [!]) and Fideo (Marco Leonardi), El’s two partners/proteges in gun-toting mariachi-ness.
The majority of the actors are well-used, particularly Blades and Roarke—who, while sometimes verbally incoherent, gives Billy an over-the-hill weariness that is all too genuine. The only serious miscast here is the usually unmiscastable Dafoe, who in his role as Barillo adopts what can only be termed as a horrendously overdone accent. He’s more seen than heard, though.
Rodriguez’s real coup, cast-wise, is Johnny Depp—who, as he did earlier this year in Pirates of the Caribbean, steals the show as Sands, the morally flexible axis upon which this wheel of corruption turns. Sands becomes an interestingly sympathetic character, exuding oily charm, smart-ass sensibilities, and a casual propensity for violence. And his final vengeance-fueled turn—after having double-crossed himself into a rendezvous with a precisely wielded drill—is one of the most brilliant moves in the twisted plot.
As an action flick, Once Upon a Time in Mexico shines. The action here is stylized and often viciously hilarious, with a church gun battle and a wonderfully executed (and strategically brief) car chase as two key scenes. The final third of the film is awash in guns and gore as the coup is set in motion and El makes his move to save the President, but Depp once again takes center stage as the ocularly deficient underdog—attired all in black, pistolero-style, for his final showdown.
If there is one area in which Rodriguez ups his Desperado-ante and fails, it is in the political/patriotic overtones that take precedence in the last half of the movie. Here we have that extra pinch of salt that almost spoils the soup, making an ambiguous tale of violent revenge a statement about… pride in one’s country? No. It’s a turn that might have been interesting had we any hint that it was coming, but has no real impact on the story itself.
This doesn’t ruin the ride, however. We may not care overly much about El’s latent Mexican patriotism, but we get plenty of what we do care about: the guns, the guitars, and the vengeance… and not necessarily in that order.
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You were a demon and a lawyer? Wow. Insert joke here."
You were a demon and a lawyer? Wow. Insert joke here."
Good review Mary Lo and I can’t think of a thing to add to it other then Once Upon a Time in Mexico was a fun ride... 
And she seems to do a pretty decent job acting too! I'll post a review in the forum after I finally get round to watching it (when I find some free time!)
