The “Sangre” Story…
The movie opens with Machete (Danny Trejo) falling into a trap, and his family being killed in front of his eyes. Then, of course, the villains try to kill him and leave him for dead. After these three years go by, and Machete has crossed the border to Texas and is working as a day laborer. One day, a man sees him fight, and then hires him to kill a senator who is against illegal immigrants. Surprise, this is a setup and Machete is on the run. Now he is out to prove his innocence, while bringing those who wronged him to justice. On his quest, he enlists the help of a taco cart owner, who secretly leads the underground network into America (Luz), and an Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, agent named Sartana. Lo and behold, his nemesis Torrez, the drug dealer who killed his family years before, is behind the scenes of the whole plot. He wants to close the borders so his drugs will skyrocket. After cutting his way through the first men, Machete believes that Luz, the taco cart owner, is dead and proceeds to take up her cause. He decides to take the fight to those who are working with his enemy, and get revenge for Luz in the process. As these movies go, the nemesis shows up and there is an altercation where Machete snatches victory from the jaws of defeat. Then Machete ends when the major character drives off into the night with his “woman”. Frankly, the basic premise of this movie is evident in the trailer. This included at least one of the major twists. However, there are still a few shocking and astonishing moments to lift your spirits.
The “Familia” of Actors…
Danny Trejo leads the cast of stars, once again gaining the role of a scarred, tough badass. I could go into a lot of detail about how good Trejo plays this character, but the evidence is in a number of his other movies. This is due to the fact that this is a role he plays quite often. However, I did notice a new depth to Trejo’s facial expressions and mannerisms in this movie. They turned him from a hard-hitting tough guy, into a thoughtful hard- hitting tough guy; the next star has to be Jessica Alba. Like many of her movies she plays the sultry vixen, who still knows how to kick ass in high heels. Though this was the case in Machete, Alba will get the most notoriety from her shower scene. That’s right guys; Jessica Alba is in a shower without a curtain obscuring her. Enjoy. The next major actor was Michelle Rodriguez. Once again, she played the sultry woman who could probably beat the pulp out of most guys. To get a feel for her character just mix Jessica Alba with Rambo. Another twounexpected actors in Machete were Robert De Niro and Steven Seagal. These two men also shared a common characteristic, their accents. Both of these notable actors adopted, or tried to adopt a completely foreign accent than they are associated with when playing their characters this film. Seagal tries to speak with a Mexican accent, while Robert De Niro talks like a Texan. I don’t know if you can even imagine the New Yorker with a southern twang, and I must admit that I was speechless the first time that I heard it. This being a Robert Rodriguez movie, Cheech Merin made an appearance. He brought a majority of the comedic scenes to Machete while still being a man, well holy man, of action. There were a lot more recognizable actors in this movie, but one other actress that needs to be discussed is Lindsay Lohan. She plays the typical model, also known as a porn star who is a drug addict, and ends the movie being a gun toting, habit wearing killer.
The “Depravado” Blu-ray…
The work done on the Blu-Ray for Machete was one of the most intensive that I have seen in quite some time. It is hard to comment about the quality of the film when Robert Rodriguez uses gritty cinematography purposefully in the film. However, when those shots were not in play the movie was crisp clean and everything that should be expected from a Blu-ray video. I was quite taken aback by the work done on the timeline for the movie. Everyone expects the menu’s and the movie quality to be exceptional, but in Machete, the timeline and the skip features were also beautifully designed. On the timeline, there were markers for each scenes beginning, as well as a screen capture of the key frame so that I was able to tell what each part of the story was. The shock came when each of these timelines were denoted by a specially designed red blood spatter that connected back to the entire overall theme and “feel” of the movie.
Another interesting feature in the Machete Blu-ray was the search option. Here, I could not only choose between scenes, I could also select “bookmarks”. This means that I was able to favorite my favorite sections of the movie for quick playback and the ability to easily jump to them.
Sadly, I found the bonus features in this Blu-ray lacking. The “Extras” section included an audience reaction track, which is just what it sounds like. It also contained some deleted scenes. Actually the Blu-ray had over 10 minutes of deleted and alternate scenes that changed certain aspects of Machete in a surprising way. The only other features included were the theatrical trailers and some sneak previews.
The other extra features include an option for live extras. Here I was able to go online and download other features like behind the scenes footage. Frankly, I did not like this feature and it seemed like a huge cop out to me.
