Review of Once Upon a Time in Mexico (2003) by Harold S — 21 Nov 2015

El Mariachi (Antonio Banderas) is recruited by CIA agent Sheldon Sands (Johnny Depp) to kill General Emiliano Marquez, a corrupt Mexican Army officer who has been hired by Mexican drug lord Armando Barillo (Willem Dafoe) to assassinate the President of Mexico and overthrow the government. Many years before, El Mariachi and his wife Carolina (Salma Hayek) confronted Marquez in a shootout and wounded the general; in retaliation, Marquez took the lives of Carolina and their daughter in an ambush. In addition to El Mariachi, Sands persuades former FBI agent Jorge Ramírez to come out of retirement and kill Barillo, who had murdered his partner Archuleta in the past. Furthermore, AFN operative Ajedrez is assigned by Sands to tail Barillo. While monitoring Barillo's activities, Ramírez meets Billy Chambers (Mickey Rourke), an American fugitive who has been living under the protection of Barillo, but can no longer stomach the horrible tasks he's been forced to carry out for him. Ramírez convinces Chambers he will provide him protection in exchange for getting closer to Barillo by tagging Chambers' pet chihuahua with a hidden microphone, and Chambers agrees to complete the deal by surrendering to U.S. authorities once Barillo has been taken down. Cucuy (Danny Trejo), who was originally hired by Sands to keep an eye on El Mariachi, tranquilizes El Mariachi and brings him to Barillo's mansion. Cucuy, however, is promptly killed by Chambers while El Mariachi escapes from captivity and calls his friends Lorenzo and Fideo to assist him in his mission...

"Once Upon A Time In Mexico" was written, produced, edited, cinematographied, scored, and directed by the one man army Robert Rodriguez. It is the third and final film in Rodriguez's Mexico Trilogy, and is a sequel to "El Mariachi" and "Desperado". While the mentioned movies hold its own wihtin the action genre, "Once Upon A Time In Mexico" is just a bleak over the top flick with a star spangled cast that really doesn´t add anything to the film. The plot is messy and the desperation of making crazy cartoony action sequences kills the general vibe and it becomes just too much in my eyes. It´s not entertaining or cool. And Johnny Depp´s "strange" characters were tiresome already back then and by adding ridiculous dialogue to his Sands it hardly helps. "Once Upon A Time In Mexico" has an inconsistent plot, horrible dialogue and pretty terrible acting. Nah, this was a missed swing from Rodriguez.