Johnny Depp saves the day, again
It may be time to consider a Depp Clause for studio budgets. For the second time this year, the actor transforms a moribund movie into a watchable one merely by being there.
If people described this summer's Pirates Of The Caribbean as more fun than expected, I'm betting it's because of Depp's turn as a teetering, Carnaby Street buccaneer made it so.
He was like an eccentric outpatient who'd wandered into the costume trailer and found himself on set.
Without his swishbuckling presence, that movie would have sunk in the summer's crowded sea of colliding blockbusters.
With him, it bobbed like a cork over the competition.
As the gleefully manipulative, tourist-tacky CIA agent Sands in Robert Rodriguez's
candy-floss border shoot-'em-up Once Upon A Time In Mexico, Depp gives
you a reason to stick around.
Wearing Dean Martin-issue headgear, T-shirts emblazoned with "CIA," and possibly history's first sexy looking fanny pack, Depp singlehandedly skews the movie into something interesting whenever he's around.
Otherwise, writer/director Robert Rodriguez's third resurrection of his machine-gun guitar-toting "El Mariachi" character - played handsomely, but not nearly so slyly, by Antonio Banderas - is a curiously underwhelming affair.
A story of revenge set against a noisy backdrop of revolution, conspiracy and coup d'état, it's at once busy and lacklustre, intricately plotted yet indifferently paced, handsomely mounted but made from plastic. A queasy mix of half-cooked politics and overbuttered popcorn, Once Upon A Time In Mexico feels like a juggler's attempt at heavy lifting, with predictably herniated results.
But here's the thing: when Depp's on screen - in a role that not only feels largely improvised, but probably much expanded in the editing room - the pain disappears.
This guy could represent the next stage in the evolution of script doctoring. If your movie's foundering, give it a Depp charge.