Review of Machete (2010) by Shiira — 03 Sep 2010

Ken Loach is not Mexican; Loach, the politically-minded filmmaker who made "Bread and Roses"(the 2000 message movie about a janitors' strike, largely comprised of transplanted Mexicans in the U.

S.) is a Brit. Being an outsider, Loach was saddled with the obligation of depicting a race in the best possible light, so as a result, the well-intentioned "Bread and Roses", at times, suffocates on its own earnestness, which is, the most common malady that plagues any didacticist film.

Also, there was the matter of the old conundrum that any socio-political film faces(most prominently featured in Alan Parker's "Mississippi Burning"), since the intermingling of differing racial heritages is contingent on a political objective, can't help but be hierarchical, in which a white hero(Adrien Brody as the union organizer) becomes the focal point of the story.

The importance of the janitors is signified by its savior. Ken Loach wouldn't be able to get away with making a film like "Machete"; he doesn't have the blood to be irreverent about the state of Mexicans in the U.

S. But just because a filmmaker has the license to go pop with a hot button topic such as illegal immigration like a grindhouse cineaste, instead of a social realist, should he? Can a scene where Lindsay Lohan totes a machine gun while donning a nun's habit co-exist with a more sobering one in which a pregnant border crosser is gunned down by an INS agent without leaving a bad taste in your mouth? Like any exploitation movie, can the politics of "Machete" survive the onslaught of cheap thrills, enabling the message to go down like disguised medicine? That's debatable; that's up to you.

But keep this in mind: despite the high quotient of graphic violence and gratuitious nudity, the hero is no gringo; he's brown, albeit with bad skin, and worse teeth. In "Machete", "wetbacks" are doin' it for themselves.

Machete(Danny Trejo) echoes Malcolm X's words(from the 1992 Spike Lee film about the slain Nation of Islam leader) when he tells a white kid(adopted by Mexican parents, played by Daryl Sabara) that there's nothing he can do for them.

Like the white FBI agents in "Mississippi Burning"(Gene Hackman and Willem Dafoe), one of Michael's guards sees the injustice of the new immigration laws, yet his conscience never translates into traitorous behavior.

He doesn't join the revolution. When Machete needs help, it's his own people(the "network", organized by "She", played by Michelle Rodriguez) who come to the vigilante's aid; the invisible people in uniforms, the service people who need Adrien Brody to mobilize them in "Bread and Roses".