Filmmaker Robert Rodriguez has always done things his way. A notorious micro-manager, he passed off the micro-budgeted ($7,000) “El Mariachi” as a serviceable gunplay flick thanks to savvy, guerilla-style shooting and his tireless multi-tasking.
Given a considerably larger fistful of dollars to remake “El Mariachi” as “Desperado” in 1996, Rodriguez remained true to his seat-of-the-pants aesthetic. The film also introduced the Anglo world to two established stars of Spanish-speaking culture: Antonio Banderas and Salma Hayek.
While most filmmakers operating on a limited budget would focus on developing inexpensive elements of their production (story, character, etc.), Rodriguez does quite the opposite. The first two installments in his Mariachi saga are straightforward revenge tales — drug lord harms someone close to Mariachi and/or maims Mariachi himself; Mariachi spends the rest of the movie eliminating impotent henchman in a hail of bullets until he gets his whack at said drug lord.
Rodriguez’s protagonist is a myth, a larger-than-life folk hero whose character is colored a different shade by each anecdote told about him. El Mariachi doesn’t need depth to be watchable (which is what made Banderas, not exactly known for his nuanced performances, such a good fit), just a forum for some John Woo-inspired mayhem.
This is indeed what makes the final installment in the trilogy, “Once Upon a Time in Mexico,” so frustrating, as Rodriguez tries but only occasionally succeeds to juggle an overwrought and needlessly convoluted plot with his trademark eye for spectacular action sequences.
Rodriguez attempts to place his story on the epic scale of Sergio Leone’s spaghetti westerns (as indicated by the title) and, in doing so, gets lost in at least three different narrative strands and countless subplots. Banderas returns in the role of the famed guitarrista/assassin roped into foiling a plot against the Mexican president by way of mendacious CIA agent Sands (Johnny Depp, “Pirates of the Carribean”).
Sands baits “El” (Rodriguez regular Danny Trejo at one point jives “As in ‘The'”) by informing him that the muscle behind the coup is a disgruntled army general responsible for killing his beloved Carolina (Salma Hayek, limited to an extended cameo but bafflingly given second-billing) and their daughter.
The man ultimately behind the coup, however, is requisite drug kingpin Barillo (Willem Dafoe, “Spider-Man”), who seeks to rid the Mexican government from meddling further in his business. Add a retired FBI agent with a slain partner, a slow-witted Texan unhappy with his lot in life and Barrillo’s corrupt daughter, and you’ve got enough on your mind to distract you from Rodriguez’s balletic gunfights.
Oddly enough, the film’s real saving grace comes not from its ultra-violent set-pieces but from the performance of Depp, who caustically dances around the moral periphery of his character as expertly as he dove into the hamminess of his role in “Pirates.”
An expatriate working within a national cinema he refuses to embrace, Depp appropriately (and perhaps unwittingly) provides a moment of prescience in the film’s latter third. Symbolically blinded, Sands evades and kills a would-be assassin, using a Mexican boy as his eyes. Sands speaks nothing but English and the boy only Spanish, yet they have no problem understanding one another.
Superficially, this can be chalked up to plot convenience, but Rodriguez is dropping hints here that Hollywood must reconsider its notion of a domestic audience that includes all of North America and create a dialogue without language, especially as the racial dynamics of America continue to shift, and the global market becomes increasingly lucrative.
Rodriguez is also pointing the way with his terrific manipulation of high-resolution digital video, a cost-cutter that not-coincidentally is being pushed by other Texan filmmakers like Richard Linklater (“Tape,” “Waking Life”).
Here’s to hoping Rodriguez and company can find a happy (and cheap) marriage of style, story and thematics in their pursuit of what’s next.
Grade: B
