MACHETE KILLS

year: 2013 cast: Danny Trejo, Mel Gibson, Charlie Sheen, Amber Heard, Walton Goggins rating: *

Director Robert Rodriguez, who, along with Quentin Tarantino in other projects, revamps exploitation cinema to younger audiences while rekindling the drive-in genre for older folks, really wants Danny Trejo, the muscular Latino tough guy usually cast as villains or henchman/side characters, to be a big star… In fact, MACHETE KILLS is the second attempt: Trejo plays Machete Cortez, a Mexican police officer turned lethal spy wielding the titular weapon. He can never  bite the dust and is more Jason Voorhees from FRIDAY THE 13th than a worthy, vulnerable action hero protagonist...

Without fearing death, and from being able to survive just about everything thrown his way, we’re stuck with a grimacing "wraith" ambling from one dire situation to the next and, being fully aware he simply cannot be stopped, any and all suspense is gone: Not only that, but Machete’s not even the main character… Well not really… Saddled with a thoroughly annoying Mexican agent turned bad guy with a bomb strapped to his heart, there’s so much vapidly rambling/wannabe Tarantino dialogue that Machete gets lost in the mix… He stands around with a dull scowl as a plethora of banal characters take over, from sexy sirens to a face-altering hit man/woman. Added to that is Mel Gibson’s completely unoriginal world-dominating villain Luther Voz, who has the same ultimate plan as the James Bond MOONRAKER heavy – destroy the earth with a nuclear bomb, rocket into space with a group of pretty people to create a new, perfect world with him as ruler…

What really makes MACHETE KILLS so tediously awful is the over-abundance of characters being shot and killed in a matter of seconds. Several folks actually have a speck of potential and are gunned down before being fully realized. Meanwhile, scores of innocent bystanders are pointlessly slaughtered, an obvious attempt to thrill a targeted cult audience that, whether it’s clear to Robert Rodriquez or not, yearns for an intentionally bad "b-movie" that, like the ones we grew up on, had an actual plot to follow and worthy characters, real enough to relate with and root for.

Possibly the worst action movie/exploitation film ever, ever, ever made