1994 - ROADRACERS, from the Rebel Highway series

 Roadracers involves a greasy haired hot rod driver racing around a small town while being harassed by the local sheriff. The sheriff has a son who is basically a juvenile delinquent who is also the antagonist of the hot rod driver.  It all comes to a head one night and in a violent showdown.

 The roadracer is played by David Arquette an actor usually known for playing goof balls on TV shows and in films.  Arquette improbably has a hot Hispanic girlfriend played by Salma Hayek.  Perennial character actor villain William Sadler is the sheriff and you can throw in a cameo by actor Kevin McCarthy watching himself in The Invasion Of The Body Snatchers.

 

The film was directed by Robert Rodriguez in that frenzied manner he brought to his debut film El Maricachi.  This attempt at making a B-movie generally succeeds.  Coming from a background of making a film for next to no budget Rodriguez probably was probably in heaven with a budget of around one million dollars.  

 

The whole point of these Rebel Highway films was to make them on the cheap and to replicate the AIP exploitation films. Although I am only two films into this series this seems the most successful so far.

Written by Rodriguez and  Tommy Nix, the running time is 95 minutes.

2013 - MACHETE KILLS, a failed B-movie spoof

Hispanic filmmaker Robert Rodriguez can't seem to let go of the Machete character he created for the Grindhouse film he and Quentin Tarantino directed in 2007.  The first film Machete was over the top with it's silly violence and comedy bits.   But the film also had a bizarre cast which included Lindsey Lohan, Cheech Martin, Steven Seagal and Robert De Niro of all people.

Going back to the well with the same silly formula as the first film just shows how tired his exaggerated B movie concept has become.  Rodriguez pulled together another eccentric cast and has lots of over the top violence but it all seems kind of stupid this time. 

As the lead Rodriguez again uses Danny Trejo an actor who is so physically stiff he seems like he can barely walk across the set much less hack people to death with a really big knife.  Rodriguez managed to talk Mel Gibson into appearing in his film and talk about how the mighty have fallen.  At least Gibson managed to inject some humor into this turkey but it's kind of painful to see him in this "bow wow" of a film at all. 

Toward the end of Machete Kills, Rodriguez steals the plot of Moonraker with a space station in orbit ready to start a new world order.  It was at this point in the film I finally realized what I was watching was a very cut rate James Bond film.

108 minutes, written by Kyle Ward.

2010 - MACHETE, B movie wanna be

Straddling the line between garbage, nauseating violence, female exploitation and social satire, it pains me to admit I enjoyed this junk.  Loaded with enough inside movie jokes,  its clear this isn't to be taken seriously.

What bothers me is that this film will probably be about the only movie that comes out that actually takes on the problem of illegal immigration in the United States.

When this film started and as I watched all the impaling and beheading of many of the actors,  I wondered  if I had thrown away my matinee money for some utter garbage.  But, I started to enjoy it. 

Wow what a cast.  Lindsey Lohan plays a variation on herself, a tramp.  Cheech Martin a priest with a church that's more like an armory.  Jeff Fahey  good as a businessman exploiting the illegal immigration problem. Tom Savini, the famous makeup artist responsible for Romero's zombies shows up as a hit man. And surprising even me,  Jessica Alba and Steven Segal in probably the two better performances in the film, and I hope I never write that in a review again.

Robert DeNiro plays a Texas state senator trying to exploit the immigrant issue for political gains,  DeNiro at times drops his accent Texas twang and reverts back to his New York dialect at times, he appears to be amused with himself in this film.   In one of the film's sickest jokes, he's shot by washed up actress Lohan. 

The film's biggest weakness in Machete,  Danny Trejo as Machete.  I don't object to the fact that this 60 year old plus character actor playing an action hero and gets all the hot young babes, that's actually kind of funny.  But Trejo himself just doesn't seem like an interesting actor.  He also moves like he's 66 years old which they cover up with a lot of frenzied editing.

The director Robert Rodriguez, is his usual one man band film making machine.  He writes, directs and shoots in Texas to keep his budgets low.  The guy seems to have some talent, but he still hasn't figured out that maybe all this excess violence might be a bit of a turn off for a general audience.  Apparently he doesn't appear to care. 

Loved the guy in the El Santo mask.