Machete (DVD/Blu-Ray) - Dir. Ethan Maniquis, Robert Rodriguez. Starring Danny Trejo, Jessica Alba, Robert De Niro.
Danny Trejo attempts to chop off one of every body part in this parody of 1970s exploitation films.
Based on a phony trailer from 2007's Grindhouse, Machete is about an illegal Mexican immigrant named Machete Cortez who hacks up bad guys with a machete for justice. It's not clear if his interest in machetes started because of his name, or if it's just a happy coincidence.
The extreme violence in this movie is about as absurd as the stuff in mainstream action films like Salt, but the difference is that here the filmmakers are in on the joke. Every time Machete lops off four heads with a single swing, it's a triumph instead of an insult to our intelligence.
The cast, while never what you would call "talented," is stunningly appropriate.
Michelle Rodriguez deviates as far from her typical character type as she ever has, playing a tough-talking rebel with unbound hair instead of a tough-talking soldier with a ponytail. She resists until almost the very end before finally picking up an assault rifle and getting herself shot.
Lindsay Lohan plays a naked meth head, and that's all I have to say about that.
Steven Seagal, who has used various degrees of squinting in the past to try and pass himself off as Asian, Native American, and Italian, pretends to be Mexican this time. Pushing 250 lbs, he lumbers around like a brontosaurus in a final unsatisfying knife fight with Trejo.
Jessica Alba's scenes make up most of the other weak moments of the movie. Her straight-laced character manages to be dull even when she's stabbing someone in the eye with a shoe.
Robert De Niro is the only one out of place. He seems to enjoy himself.
Only a certain type of person will appreciate a film like this, and those people already know who they are. I'm not necessarily among them, but I know a good example of the genre when I see it. The bad guys are bad, the good guys are spotless, there is gratuitous nudity, and the hero rappels down a wall using the intestines of his enemy. I can't argue with that.
Rated R for the intestines thing3.5 out of 5
Dinner for Schmucks (DVD/Blu-Ray) - Dir. Jay Roach. Starring Paul Rudd, Steve Carell, Stephanie Szostak.
Awful movie.On the verge of getting a promotion, corporate employee Tim (Paul Rudd) is invited by his boss to a "dinner for idiots": an evening where wealthy businessmen each bring along a buffoon to be secretly mocked by the hosts. Just as he's deciding between participating in the cruel game and disappointing his superiors, Tim meets Barry (Steve Carell), a man who creates works of art out of stuffed mice--the perfect guest.
Sounds like a decent premise, right? Now forget it entirely. Twenty minutes in, we find out that Dinner for Schmucks is actually a tedious comedy about Barry inserting himself into Tim's life and ruining it with his "wacky" hijinks. It's a two-hour episode of the worst sitcom you can imagine.No, that's not fair. It's not as bad as Two and a Half Men.
Its vapid scenarios and nonsensical character actions bring it pretty close, however. Barry is supposed to be well-meaning, but in practice his only motivation seems to be to do the stupidest thing he can think of at a given moment. He does everything but burn Tim's apartment down with napalm, but because he does it all with a goofy grin on his face we're supposed to take him as a loveable doofus. And Tim, despite constantly venting about how Barry is ruining his life, still enables him at every turn, never demonstrating the ounce of problem-solving skills it would take to fix everything.
The movie gets steadily worse as it goes on, becoming completely unbearable somewhere around the point where Barry bursts into a sensitive business lunch with a crazy woman he has convinced to pose as Tim's girlfriend. Tim, of course, inexplicably goes along with it.
All of these scenes run to the point where they would have stopped being funny had they been funny in the first place, and then go on another ten or twenty minutes.
The closest thing to a bright spot in the movie is Jemaine Clement playing an eccentric artist. But even he manages to outstay his welcome in every scene.
Why couldn't Machete have served justice to these monsters instead?
Rated PG-13 for psychological torment2 out of 5
