#36 — Desperado
This is an illustrated countdown of my 49 1/2 most essential action movies. Last week I talked about Rambo (Fourth Blood).
Has there ever been a cooler action hero than Antonio Banderas in Desperado? (You can put your hand down, the answer is no). I don’t think we fully appreciate this attribute on account of how little of it there actually is in action cinema. Let’s face it, most of these glorified gunmen are the last people we’d ever want to be — tortured by a dark past, navigating rotten relationships, or stricken with the complete inability to feel anything while mowing down armies of redshirts.
While John Wick is fighting his way through the Ninth Circle of Assassin Hell, El Mariachi is striking bullfighter poses in the middle of gunfights. While John McClane is scrounging up loose change to call Holly on a payphone, El Mariachi is “thanking” Salma Hayek with a passion that could melt steel beams. While John Spartan gets laughed at for not knowing how to use the three seashells, Steve Buscemi regales bartenders with campfire stories of the Mariachi’s legendary competence (not at wiping his own butt — which I’m sure he’s great at — but at shooting people, specifically).
During the opening credits, we see him performing with other musicians at a bar. He’s singing in Spanish and his L’Oréal locks are pulled back in a ponytail. He plays his way across the countertop to beat up this guy who’s threatening a woman. He just whacks him with his guitar and keeps on playing! Everyone claps. He spots someone from his past in the crowd and wakes up. He was having one of those Walter Mitty fantasies, but it turned into a nightmare about the man that killed his girl. Now he’s gotta get some revenge for her murder.
Not the coolest thing about him, but a cool way to introduce his story. These are the trade-offs you have to make sometimes. He goes to confession later, demonstrating an understanding of consequences and unexpected outcomes. He also gives a young boy a free guitar lesson. Cool Equilibrium has once again been established. His new girlfriend’s book store gets burned down, which is really not cool at all, but they win an MTV Coolest-Walkaway-From-An-Explosion Award in the process, smoothing the whole thing over. Maximum cool levels achieved AGAIN. He don’t miss.
El Mariachi is sort of like a Mad Max type in that you could imagine him having all kinds of random adventures in different towns, and maybe they’re embellished or not even true but it’s not really about the truth. Whatever happens, I’d believe it. At the end of the day, it’s just about watching this guy survive his dream-logic based bar-fights while going on dates with Salma Hayek.
Sam Raimi coined the term “Spook-a-blast” to describe some of his work in the horror genre. I think Robert Rodriguez has made the action equivalent of that here, and he really excels at this type of thing — so much so that Danny Trejo’s knife-wielding assassin would eventually get his own spinoff movie in the form of “Machete”. I know he’s gotten some grief for lazy green screen productions and whatnot, but I don’t think you can knock his passion or effort here, especially when everything on screen screams it’s affection for the medium.
You can’t make this movie without being good at your craft, but you especially can’t make it without love. You watch this and know immediately that he loves westerns, John Woo, his cast, his heritage. He loves slow motion and sets filled with shattered glass and beer spewing everywhere. He loves humor. He loves Danny Trejo. He loves music. He loves making movies. I respect his career, and his desire to entertain, to be silly and indulgent and free.
Desperado is the product of pure passion. The perfect party. A love letter to Hong Kong style shoot-em-ups. A monumental achievement in hotness.
