365 Films A Year!

Viewed August 11, 2006

Back in 1992, when Quentin Tarantino was the poster boy for “new cinema” with his groundbreaking film Resevoir Dogs, I was more impressed by Robert Rodriguez’ film El Mariachi. There’s no question that Resevoir Dogs is more professional (especially the acting talent) and slicker. But El Mariachi showed that Rodriguez had such a strong grasp of the language of movies that he could do anything he wanted. He could be funny, romantic, action-filled, gory. He could pull you into the storyline while simultaneously blowing you away with pure visuals. In the years since, Rodriguez has carved out a place all his own, self-producing whatever he feels like from hard-edged film to family-friendly fare. Once Upon A Time In Mexico sees him returning one more time to the world established in El Mariachi and continued in Desperado.

This time around, El Mariachi (Antonio Banderas) is brought out of “retirement” to help a CIA Agent named Sands (Johnny Depp), whose shady dealing involve a druglord (Willem Dafoe), the Mexican president (Pedro Armendáriz Jr.), an American criminal on the run (Mickey Rourke) and even a retired FBI Agent (Rubén Blades).

Once Upon A Time In Mexico is not a perfect film. The main problem is that it lacks the cohesiveness of the previous two films in the series. The story seems more scattershot, less focused. The two primary storylines barely cross and they don’t seem to be naturally associated with each other. I got the sense that Rodriguez could have made a great film about Agent Sands or a great film about El Mariachi, but by trying to tell both stories, he ends up with only a really good one.

The big highlight comes from Depp, perhaps not surprisingly, who simply swamps the screen whenever he’s on it. Given the incredible screen presence that Banderas brings, this is not a small accomplishment. But given El Mariachi’s position at the start of the film, as a character he tends to be less dynamic, leaving that to Sands and Depp runs with it. (Amazingly, Depp was on-set for a total of only eight days. You’d never know it.)

Banderas and Hayek have been down this road before and so I guess they were less impressive because of that. At least Cheech Marin got to play a new character (and die in a new way) this time around. But most of the characters in Once Upon A Time In Mexico, like much of the film, are just more of the same. Blades and Rourke are good, but Blades gets little to do and Rourke is a bit too similar to a dozen other performances to really impress.

All that being said, Rodriguez is still able to bring it all together into an entertaining package. If you just stop thinking about all the convoluted plot points and just relax and watch, Once Upon A Time In Mexico is a great thrill ride. The action sequences match or surpass anything in the first two films and it’s worth watching for Depp’s performance alone. It’s just that when he set the bar so high with the first two, it’s unfortunate that the last film doesn’t quite measure up.

This entry was posted on Monday, August 14th, 2006 at 2:33 pm and is filed under 2003, 365 Films Award Winners, Crime, Drama, Sequel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.