Danny Trejo

  • Machete (2010)

    Machete (2010)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In theaters, September 2010) When a trailer for then-fake film Machete appeared attached to Grindhouse three years ago, the joke worked pretty well.  But would it survive being turned into a feature-length film?  As it turns out, Machete the film is what Machete the fake-film trailer had promised: A fully entertaining mixture of exploitation filmmaking, populist indignation and self-aware cinematic winks.  Bolstered by one of the most amazing cast in recent memory, Machete finally gives a much-deserved featured role to the mesmerising Danny Trejo, with fun parts for such notables as Robert De Niro, Steven Seagal, Lindsey Lohan, Jessica Alba and Michelle Rodriguez.  Everyone looks like they’re having fun, which is in keeping with the film’s mexploitation theme: if you’re going to make a movie that plays to the audience’s bases desires for nudity, action and revenge, why not do it well?  Writer/Director/Editor Robert Rodriguez certainly knows what he’s doing: the editing lingers on the nudity, stays long enough on the action and flashes past the goriest violence so that we can enjoy the film’s dark humour without being repulsed by its excesses.  (Rodriguez may not have been the film’s sole director, but it’s unmistakably his film.)  It’s a terrific piece of grindhouse cinema, but it comes with quite a bit of populist decency.  The Latino diaspora is colourfully represented by food, more food, Catholic symbolism and a distinctive aesthetics: Add to that a striking case for respecting immigrant rights, and Machete becomes a film that speaks loudly about basic human rights while still delivering a hefty dose of disreputable entertainment.  In short, it’s a film that works on a number of levels, not the least of which is a considerable amount of sheer movie-going pleasure.  Knowing Rodriguez’s considerable personal charm and fondness for explaining the movie-making process, I can’t wait until it comes out on video.

  • Predators (2010)

    Predators (2010)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In theaters, July 2010) Given the indefensible mess that were the two Alien vs Predator movies, it doesn’t take much to reboot the Predator franchise with a mean and lean action follow-up to the first film.  Anyone complaining about Predators’ thin story, unimaginative extension to the franchise or routine structure may want to step back from keyboard for a moment and acknowledge that this late follow-up isn’t too bad: It certainly doesn’t waste any time dropping us in the thick of the action, with its rapid assembly of human warriors being hunted by aliens on an equally-alien planet.  SF fans will be disappointed by the lack of substance of the film’s SF elements (It takes a surprisingly long time for the characters to look up and notice that they’re not on Earth anymore, even after passing through a rocky plain), so it’s better to focus on Predators as an action film with a few fancy trappings.  But even there, the film struggles to distinguish itself: a few sequences are badly staged and rely on unbelievable spatial coincidences.  (For a film that takes place on an entire alien planet, everything seems to happen within two or three city blocks.)  It’s marginally more successful at establishing each characters and giving them even a modicum of respectability: We know they’re going to be picked-off one by one, but at least we can enjoy their presence while they last.  Adrian Brody credibly growls his way to a buff action hero, but supporting players such as Danny Trejo and Louis Ozawa Changchien (in a nearly-silent role) also get a few good moments.  Nimród Antal’s direction is slightly more ambitious than the usual stock action film, and that’s how the film allows itself a few better moments such as a swordfight seen from overhead.  Predators does last a bit too long, muddles into a mid-film lull and can’t really escape the shadow of the first Predator film, but at least it’s clearly in line with the first film, and that’s something that none of the sequels have been able to claim so far.  Not a bad result for something that falls into a generic action film slot.