| The
Review: |
El Mariachi (Carlos Gallardo) is a
mariachi guitar player who is just arriving at a town
looking for work. What he doesn't know is that he is walking
into the middle of a drug war and one of the drug lords, Azul
(Reinol Martinez), uses a disguise to carry his guns to his
targets, a guitar case. El Mariachi enters the town just after
Azul has carried out a hit on some of Moco's men; Moco (Peter
Marquardt) is the rival drug lord. Moco then sends out some
of his men to find Azul but, being the only one that has seen
him, only describes him as carrying a guitar case and wearing
black, his signature attire, which is what El Mariachi happens
to be carrying and wearing. ***
Of course El Mariachi is mistaken for Azul and gets
caught up on the fight, having to defend himself on several
occasions when mistaken for Azul and even killing a few of
Moco's men. El Mariachi eventually finds refuge in the bar
of Domino (Consuelo Gómez), who just happens to be
the ex-love interest of Moco. When El Mariachi is finally
caught by Moco, Domino concedes to go with Azul to Moco's
house so Azul can either kill Moco or get the money owed him
(part of a back story that isn't very well developed).
***
Azul uses Domino as a human shield, but only initially
because Domino spills to Moco that she is worried about El
Mariachi. Her concern is understood by Moco to be a betrayal
of his love. He shoots her then shoots Azul.
***
When El Mariachi arrives he finds Domino, with whom
he has fallen in love, dead. Enraged, he isn't sure what to
do until El Mariachi shoots him in the hand. Knowing that
this means the end of his guitar playing days, his rage boils
over. He finds Azul's gun and kills Moco. With his music career
over, El Mariachi takes Azul's guitar case, which is full
of guns, and becomes a hitman out for revenge.
***
Before I say anything else I need to mention that
this movie was made on a $7,000 dollar budget. Yes, you read
that right, only 3 zeros after the 7; seven thousand dollars,
which is absolutely remarkable for a feature length film.
Now keep that in mind as I review the film.
***
I don't know by what twist of fate this happened,
but I happened to pick up both El Mariachi and Desperado (both
by Robert Rodriguez) at the exact same time without knowing
anything about either of them. I then proceeded to watch Desperado,
thinking it would be the more interesting of the two films
as it had Antonio Banderas in it and seemed to have a bigger
budget. Well, I was right about the budget thing, but when
I put El Mariachi in right after finishing Desperado I was
stunned! I had watched the movies in the wrong order but I
was now putting the pieces together of why Desperado was such
a bad film, and it wasn't as bad as I had originally imagined.
Desperado, as it turns out, is the sequel (though not a very
clear one) of El Mariachi and only real makes sense in that
context. As a matter of fact, my wife, who watched them both
with me, was laughing herself silly when she saw the cover
of El Mariachi after watching Desperado. She said something
like, "It's got to be the same plot. It has the exact
same thing on the cover - a guitar case and a gun." Anyway,
it made for a fun night for us because we spent the whole
time both laughing at ourselves for not knowing that they
were sequels and being amazed at what Rodriguez had done with
$7,000.
***
So, what about the story? Well, the story is decent.
It isn't really anything to write home about, but it worked.
A guy gets mistaken for someone else and is then caught up
in the bitter battle between the two. It's kind of a rehashsed
plot, but I've definitely seen much worse. What's more, there
aren't very many major holes. It is a little fishy that Azul
just walks out of jail when things get a little hot for him.
The people that get killed don't seem to stir up any policemen,
who are strangely absent throughout (likely due to not being
able to afford police uniforms and not being able to get the
police to act in the film for free). There is also the rather
quick development of the love relationship between El Mariachi
and Domino and the undeveloped backstory between Domino and
Moco along with the undeveloped backstory which is hinted
at even more between Moco and Azul. So, the story isn't perfect.
It could have been tightened up with a bit of work, but I
wasn't really too bothered buy it. I thought it worked okay.
***
As for the acting, well, it isn't half bad considering
no one got paid; at least I don't believe anyone got paid.
What's more, the majority of the actors were actually either
people that lived in the town or were helping out on the movie.
I think it helped that the only people who really had to act
where the three main characters and the rest pretty much just
had to be themselves. As for the three main characters, well,
the villain, Peter Marquardt, was a bit cliché, but
not too bad. The other two were actually decent. I'm not thinking
Oscars here, but it was actually a fairly convincing performance,
especially by Carlos Gallardo, who reappears in the sequel
by the way.
***
Of course I have to mention a couple of things about
the low-budget nature of the film. There are a couple of scenes
where you can tell there were problems in the filming/editing
department and a couple of places where the low-budget is
blatantly reflected. The first is a scene where El Mariachi
runs between two bad who end up killing each other. Though
the editing tries to cover it up, it is really jagged and
can't actually hide the fact that their guns were never actually
pointed at each other. The other really bad scene is when
El Mariachi is shot in the hand. I'm not positive about this,
but I'm pretty sure that the hand is a fake hand because the
fingers wobble all over the place. Perhaps Rodriguez can spill
the beans on that later, but it looked pretty bad. And the
other extremely low-budget feature was the head in El Mariachi's
dreams. It was pretty good for not being professionally made,
but it wasn't even close to what a professional could have
done; good effort, but no luck on that one.
***
If you can look past the story problems, the mediocre
acting, and the low-budget special effects and are able to
give this movie a chance, I think you'll be surprised. It
really helps to keep in mind that it was made on $7,000. The
best part about it is actually to watch it a second time with
the director's commentary. I think I enjoyed the director's
commentary more than the actual film. When he reveals all
of the little things he did to make this movie work on such
a small amount of money I think you'll find you can be much
more forgiving of the problems it has. I think I would only
recommend this movie to real film buffs, people that would
appreciate the accomplishments of a small budget producer
who actually pulled something like this off.
|
| The
Extras: |
The extras on this DVD are
actually pretty good. The 10 minute film school, though it has
a 'roughly thrown together' feel, is very interesting. It is
narrated by Robert Rodriguez. In it he explores numerous ways
in which individuals can create a low-budget film like he did,
with tips and advice. It is a bit short, but it does have a
number of behind the scenes shots that reveal how some of the
tricks and stunts that were in the movie were done.
***
The Bedhead featurette is kind of funny. It is also
very grainy and is in black and white. The idea, story, and
acting are pretty fun, but again, the picture and sound quality
kind of detract from the experience. It is an interesting
short that was also probably done for almost no money.
***
The only other extra is a combination 'behind-the-scenes'
look and advertisement for Once Upon A Time in Mexico. It
includes interviews with most of the actors and the production
crew, but is pretty short and doesn't really explain the story
that well.
***
Overall, the extras are pretty good but I think the
best part of the DVD is the director's commentary.
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