From the DVD Bin: Machete

For a long time, I felt that I wasn’t as entertained by movies as before. You know the time. You’d go to the theater with your dad, or find a flick on cable, and all you could see were ridiculous explosions, ridiculous gunfights, and as many breasts as an R-rating would allow.

These were movies that bred action, even after the ridiculous grindhouse flicks of the 70s. I’m talking about movies with stars like Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bruce Willis, Sylvester Stallone, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Carl Weathers, and Steven Seagal. They were the ones that gave us action as ridiculous as their one-liners in movies like Die Hard, Commando, Rambo, Action Jackson, Cobra, Predator, Raw Deal, Cyborg, Kickboxer, and Above the Law.

Then action films started getting more serious. Politics replaced hard-nosed cops who bend the rules. Films were still good, but lacked that punch in the balls from better times.

Until Robert Rodriguez brought us Machete.

Machete is one of those films where you can imagine every actor, actress, director, and coffee runner having fun. This is the type of film where every twist is obvious, every line is obnoxious, every action sequence is over the top, and it makes every minute of the movie enjoyable.

Plot

After watching his family butchered by Steven Seagal and exiled from his home in Mexico, ex-Federale Machete Cortez comes to America as an illegal immigrant. What he finds is a continental conspiracy including a Mexican drug czar, a US Senator, Don Johnson, and a whole bunch of titties.

Immigration policy and control of the border are on the line as Machete (Danny Trejo), immigration officer Sartana (Jessica Alba), taco truck owner Luz (Michelle Rodriguez), and a shotgun-toting priest (Cheech Marin) take on Robert De Niro, Steven Seagal, and Don Johnson in a bloodbath action movie that hasn’t been seen since the 80s.

Randomly Awesome Moments

Machete shoots two thugs with a gun still being held by the dismembered hand of a previous thug that he just hacked up.

“Chica” pulls a cellphone out of her cooch. Yeah, I’m using the word cooch, because this is the type of movie that would use the word “cooch.”

Machete learns about how long the human intestines are from a doctor, and uses that knowledge by ripping out and enemy’s intestines and using them to rappel out a window.

When Sartana finds Machete’s dossier, we learn that Machete’s birth-name is actually Machete.

Cheech Marin defends his church from Tom Savini and his men  as a shotgun-wielding priest.

Machete texts on a little phone with his ginormously fat fingers.

Machete connects a Gatling gun to a motorcycle for a short ramp jump to shoot up a gang of mercenaries.

A giant-ass knife fight with Steven Seagal.

Randomly Awesome Quotes

“You ever noticed how you let a Mexican into your house just because he’s got gardening tools? No questions asked, you just let him right in. Could have a chainsaw, you know, a machete…”- Booth’s Bodyguard #1

“It’s too hot for clothes.”- Chica

“Why do I want to be a real person when I’m already a myth?”- Machete

Stats

Machete Kills: 38

1 run over in a hail of gunfire

1 hacked to death by (wait for it) a machete

12 random machete-slicings

2 shot with a gun held by a dismembered hand

3 decapitations (at the same time)

1 incinerated in a car explosions

2 sliced up by an improvised blade-whip

1 eviscerated in order to use his intestines as rope

1 corkscrew through the forehead

1 turkey thermometer through the neck

1 cleaver to the face

3 by gunshot

2  broken glass-slicings

7 by Gatling-gun motorcycle

Explosions: 1

Machete Compadres Killed: 3

Women Machete Sleeps With: 4

Times Machete is Screwed Over: 2

Pairs of Breasts: 4

1 Mayra Leal

2 Unknown

1 Lindsay Lohan

1 almost nude Jessica Alba

Grade:

4-1/2 out of 5 machetes