Machete (Blu-ray)
Directed by Robert Rodriguez, Ethan Maniquis
Studio: Twentieth Century Fox
Year: 2010
Aspect Ratio: 1.85:1 1080p AVC codec
Running Time: 105 minutes
Rating: R
Audio: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 English; Dolby Digital 5.1 English, French, Spanish
Subtitles: SDH, Spanish
Region: A
MSRP: $ 39.99
Release Date: January 4, 2011
Review Date: January 3, 2011
The Film
3/5
Three years ago, Robert Rodriguez promised us Machete in one of the faux trailers included in Grindhouse, and now he’s delivered. As expected, it’s another elaborate love song to the exploitation films of the 1970s filled to the brim with over-the-top murder and mayhem, bodilicious babes, and unbridled carnage. The director has used his considerable clout and reputation in the industry to lasso a top-notch cast of names to dot the production, and one is continually amazed at the faces who turn up in the film. The original trailer in Grindhouse offered us Danny Trejo, Cheech Marin, and Jeff Fahey, and this movie uses them plus a half dozen other well known names to carry out the outrageously silly but galvanizing, testosterone-fueled tale concocted by the director and Alvaro Rodriguez.
After seeing his wife and daughter murdered by Mexican drug lord Torrez (Steven Seagal) and barely escaping alive, Federale Machete (Danny Trejo) requires three years to surface again, this time working in the United States whose officials are struggling with an ever-increasing stream of illegal immigrants crossing the border. Torrez’s reach is so extensive into our country that he has a band of official and unofficial thugs on his payroll: Senator McLaughlin (Robert De Niro), his aide Booth (Jeff Fahey), a vigilante border patrol officer Von (Don Johnson), and vicious hit man Osiris Ampanpour (Tom Savini). Against this onslaught of power, Machete calls on a duo of no-nonsense woman to aid in his ultimate goal of another face-off with Torrez: Luz (Michelle Rodriguez), the leader of an underground movement to help immigrants secure lives in America, and Sartana (Jessica Alba), a government agent out to stop the bad guys any way she can.
You know going in that directors Robert Rodriguez and Ethan Maniquis (a longtime co-worker) are going to max out the violence to cartoon levels even Wile E. Coyote and Daffy Duck never had to endure. (When Machete uses a man’s intestines as an escape rope, you know you’re not watching events that take place in the real world.) Though the imaginative ways the writers and directors have found to kill and maim seem limitless, the film is actually a bit too long to sustain the serio-comic levels of death and destruction they’re selling, and it does plod in certain moments. Yes, the bad guys get their comeuppance just as we expect (sometimes viciously, sometimes ironically), but the final face off between Machete and Torrez that the film has been building up to is a decided letdown. The film also toys with the deliberate inclusion of visual artifacts like scratches, dirt, and debris laid over the original photography as was done in Grindhouse, but suddenly, the motif is stopped and dropped just as suddenly as if the filmmakers tired of the gimmick. The comic tone is likewise inconsistent. Rodriguez has a sense of humor about these films and conveys much of his enthusiasm with some real wit, and then he goes for some cheap laughs, too, which don’t seem worthy of him.
Stolid Danny Trejo gets all the babes into the sack at some point during the movie though his deadpan performance wears thin after a while. Much better is Michelle Rodriguez who conveys grit but with a dash of sparkle that is her trademark, making even her Lazarus-like rise from the dead excusable. The big male star names have a lot of fun with their characters even if there are too many of them to get the screen time they deserve. Robert De Niro affects a (likely deliberately) lousy hick accent as the carpetbagger-down-south doing anything for money and power while Jeff Fahey effortlessly does his Judas thing with aplomb. Don Johnson drawls in a couple of scenes for the camera though his part could have been broadened while Tom Savini is surprisingly adept as the lethal hitman. Cheech Marin as Trejo’s priest-brother gets some funny one-liners. Lesser in appeal and effectiveness is Steven Seagal as the crime lord and Lindsay Lohan as Fahey’s nymphet daughter trading on her reputation as a real-life bad girl with a plastic performance of one here.
Video Quality
4.5/5
The theatrical aspect ratio of 1.85:1 is delivered in a 1080p transfer using the AVC codec. Purposely oversaturated to within an inch of its life, the colors are very deeply hued with just an occasional bit of blooming. Naturally, flesh tones are all deeply and brownly tanned. Sharpness, while usually exemplary, can sometimes display a soft shot or two. Apart from the scenes which have been deliberately overlaid with video artifacts like scratches and debris, the image is clean. Yellow subtitles are easy to read when Spanish-speaking actors are being translated. The film has been divided into 28 chapters.
Audio Quality
4.5/5
The DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 sound mix is very, very loud, often to system-threatening levels of volume so be prepared. It’s a very, very active mix with all manner of ambient sounds sent to the surround channels on an almost continual basis. Chingon’s music score is likewise ever-present in both the fronts and rears. Dialogue is well recorded and placed in the center channel.
Special Features
2/5
The audience reaction track (which can be found under audio options as well as special features) offers a Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack with an enthusiastic audience who cheer the murders, ogle the babes, and applaud most of the great action set pieces.
All bonus material is presented in 1080p.
There are ten deleted scenes which can be viewed individually or in one 11-minute grouping.
The theatrical trailer runs 2 minutes. There is also a “Red Band” trailer which appeared on the internet and introduced by Robert Rodriguez which runs 2 minutes.
The disc is BD-Live active and contains one exclusive deleted scene which runs for ¾ minute.
Also included in the package is a digital copy of the film and instructions for installation on PC and Mac devices.
The disc has trailers for Unstoppable, The A-Team, Street Kings 2, Twelve, and the Fox horror films available on Blu-ray.
In Conclusion
3/5 (not an average)
Machete can be fun for a bit with another helping of exploitation send-up courtesy of director Robert Rodriguez (with some assistance from family and friends). The Blu-ray is light on extras from the usually talkative director, but fans of his genre work will likely find a rental the way to go with this.
Matt Hough
Charlotte, NC
