Machete Kills

Machete Kills - Dir. Robert Rodriguez (2013)

Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino paid homage to the exploitation movies of their youth with the 2007 double feature Grindhouse. They had big plans to turn it into a franchise until the film died at the box office. Still, there was enough interest to spinoff Machete, a machete wielding badass who made his first appearance in one of Grindhouse's faux-trailers.

Described as ”FBI, CIA, and DEA all rolled into one mean burrito," Machete starred in a self-titled feature film bolstered by over-the-top action and an eclectic cast that included Robert DeNiro and Lindsay Lohan. Of course, Machete couldn't have worked without its star, Trejo, the craggily faced and tattooed character actor in his biggest role to date. Trejo returns in the sequel, Machete Kills, which remains faithful to its B-movie roots while upping the ante by adding a sci-fi spin. There's a lead villain cut from the same mold as Hugo Drax from Moonraker and plenty of Star Wars references.

A mission to foil an arms deal ends disastrously for Machete and ICE agent Sartana (Jessica Alba). Our hero is about to be hanged by a redneck sheriff (William Sadler) when he's pardoned by President Rathcock (Charlie Sheen, billed under his real name of Carlos Estevez). POTUS sends Machete into Mexico to track down a nuclear weapon that has fallen into the hands of a former cartel leader known as Mendez the Madman (Demián Bichir), so called because of his multiple personalities. However, the real mastermind is revealed to be billionaire industrialist Luther Voz (Mel Gibson), who has concocted a plan to engulf the entire world in nuclear war.

Also returning for the sequel are Michelle Rodriguez as the one-eyed revolutionary She and Tom Savini as hitman Osiris Amanpour. Joining them are Amber Heard as beauty queen/secret agent Miss San Antonio and Sofia Vergara as Desdemona, leader of a gang of deadly prostitutes. While the cast is as star-studded as its predecessor, most of the actors (Vanessa Hudgens, for example) appear in glorified cameos. One character, a master of disguise named The Chameleon, is simply there to justify a string of gonzo, guest appearances by Walt Goggins, Lady Gaga, and Cuba Gooding Jr. Only a few get to make any real impression, such as Sheen who has fun playing into his tabloid persona as a boozehound and horndog. Bichir and Gibson (in his first turn as a bad guy) give the best performances as both actors straddle the line between cartoonish villainy and honest-to-goodness gravitas. Bichir, in particular, brings some surprisingly soulful moments to Machete Kills.

Rodriguez's flair for action isn't fully on display here. Machete Kills manages a couple of decent set pieces, usually involving Machete versus Chilean martial arts star Marko Zaror. Unfortunately, much of the film is repetitive with Rodriguez relying one too many times on his hero killing henchmen by throwing them into helicopter blades. Sofia Vergara, who plays it to the hilt, packs a high caliber brassier as well as the crotch gun from Desperado and From Dusk Till Dawn. Even a catfight between Amber Heard and Michelle Rodriguez comes off dull.

Machete Kills opens with another faux-trailer for a third picture, Machete Kills Again…in Space, that offers more thrills than the actual movie that followed. Maybe it's time to say, "Adios," to this franchise.

Rating: ** (*****)

Savages

Savages - Dir. Oliver Stone (2012)

There are two kinds of Oliver Stone movies. There are the politically charged dramas like JFK and Platoon and the adrenaline fueled Tony Scott-style pictures like Natural Born Killers and U-Turn. Savages falls squarely into the latter category though it touches on the hot button topics of the war on drugs.

The lead character is O (Blake Lively), short for Ophelia, a blonde bombshell living in the idyllic Southern California community of Laguna Beach. With echoes of Sunset Boulevard, O ominously proclaims in the opening narration that just because she's telling the story doesn't mean she's alive at the end. O is in the middle of an unconventional love triangle between Chon (Taylor Kitsch) and Ben (Aaron Johnson). Chon is a war veteran who returned home from Afghanistan with a particularly potent strain of marijuana. Ben is the hippy-dippy type. He took those seeds and grew them into a lucrative network and uses the profits to build solar-powered schools in Third World nations.

Ben is the brains and Chon is the brawn, which will be called upon when their operation piques the interest of a Mexican drug cartel headed by Elena Sanchez (Salma Hayek). The cartel is looking to absorb Ben and Chon's entire network on their own terms, no negotiations. To show how serious they are, they make sure to send the boys a grisly video of decapitated heads. Ben and Chon still turn down their offer leading Elena to order the abduction of O at the hands of her brutal enforcer Lado (Benicio del Toro). Serving as the monkey wrench in everyone's plans is John Travolta as Dennis, a crooked DEA agent willing to deal with any side as long as he profits.

Savages is a sun-drenched clash between the privileged paradise of Orange County with the crime and violence that has plagued Mexico for years. There's the execution of a cocaine lawyer in his ultra-modern, suburban home and the torture of another man whose eyeball sickeningly dangles from the socket.

The segments following the ménage a trois work because the parts were cast well though Blake Lively doesn't have the emotional weight to handle some of the film's deeper moments. In her defense, it's doubtful any actress could credibly spout lines like, "I have orgasms. He has 'wargasms.'" 2012 should have been Taylor Kitsch's breakout year, but it didn't turn out that way following the bombing of John Carter and Battleship. While Savages did lukewarm business, it did give Kitsch his best role of all his recent pictures. He and Aaron Johnson breathe life into their on-screen friendship, making it feel lived in and believable. Johnson's role as Ben is a marked difference from the nerdy fanboy in Kick-Ass.

Yet, the more interesting moments are when the film follows the lives of the drug cartel. Benicio del Toro's Lado is a frightening figure that belies his bushy mustache and odd pompadour mullet. He and his men slip in and out of wealthy neighborhoods disguised as gardeners. Just as O and her boys view the cartel as savages, Lado sees them the same way due to their three-way relationship and their American sense of entitlement. Despite being a merciless executioner, he's more offended that his sons are lazy and his daughter has become a glorified valley girl. As for Elena, she assumed control following the murders of her husband and sons. She has a daughter who wants little to do with her ("She is ashamed of me and I am proud of her for it."). It's no wonder that Elena forges an unlikely maternal bond with O whose own mother (Uma Thurman in a role excised from the final cut) is off globe-trotting with her latest husband. Hayek is gorgeous and plays the role as if she stepped right out of a Telemundo soap opera.

Savages is a handsomely shot, but wildly uneven action-thriller. Old hands like Travolta, Hayek, and Benicio del Toro do most of the heavy lifting through a script bustling with tangled subplots until the movie fizzles out after a trick ending.

Rating: ** (*****)