Rodriguez's Mexico well worth the trip
It's good to see writer/director Robert Rodriguez and his pal Antonio Banderas playing with the grown-ups again.
After three "Spy Kids" movies together, the pair have returned to "Desperado" territory - to the explosions and shootouts that made their names - in "Once Upon a Time in Mexico."
The movie is a sequel to "Desperado," a cult hit that was itself a sequel to Rodriguez's even cultier "El Mariachi." "Once Upon a Time in Mexico" has that same stamp on it. The movie is as fun and explosive as the other two, but may not play well outside Rodriguez's bread-and-butter crowd of cult-like followers.
That's because the movie is almost too Rodriguez for many crowds. The man who wrote, directed, photographed, scored and edited (or, as the credits say, "chopped") the movie almost appears to have tossed in elements and scenes at random. By the end, it's clear that wasn't the case. The movie ultimately makes sense. But with everyone double-crossing their supposed partners - who were, most likely, also double-crossing them, and then being double-crossed by the people they were initially double-crossing with - some audience members will find the whole thing more convoluted than this sentence.
For Rodriguez fans, though. most of that won't matter. There are plenty of acrobatic gunfights, plenty of good explosions and enough pulpy action to keep the mind occupied for hours. You can figure out why a character was shooting at his former partner later. In the theater, it's all so much fun to watch that those details almost don't matter.
For those concerned with such things, though, here's a little plot primer:
An American CIA agent (Johnny Depp) hired El Mariachi (Banderas) to kill the general El Mariachi blames for the death of his wife (Salma Hayek, seen only in flashbacks). The catch is that Mariachi isn't supposed to kill the general until the general has shot the Mexican president. Our CIA agent wants a revolution, but he doesn't want the general or his financier running the show.
On the other side, a drug lord (Willem Dafoe) is
paying to have the president killed because said
president is coming after his business. So he pays for
the hit, which would leave our general in charge - or,
if the Mariachi is successful in killing the general,
our CIA agent figures it would leave a lot of hit
money floating around for his taking.
Confused yet?
That's how the plot goes before people start messing one another over, with characters flipping sides so quickly that we almost lose track. (Banderas was quoted in Entertainment Weekly as saying he was in the movie, and even he wasn't certain who the bad guys were.)
But again, while the plot does ultimately matter, it's not what will draw people to "Mexico." The draw will be Rodriguez and Banderas returning to their pulpy action roots, and they don't disappoint.
They do, however, nearly have their movie stolen out from under them. Depp, a newcomer to Rodriguez's film world, owns the screen in "Mexico." Every time his corrupt CIA agent shows up is a treat, often bringing with it bouts of laughter similar to those he gave in this summer's "Pirates of the Caribbean."
This performance is almost the opposite of his perpetually drunk Capt. Jack Sparrow. His agent is as laid-back as Sparrow was flamboyant, but to no less hysterical an effect. Were "Mexico" a bad movie, Depp would be reason enough to pay the admission. In a movie this entertaining, it's just one more reason for Rodriguez fans to head to "Mexico" this weekend.