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Once Upon A Time In Mexico (2003)
Once Upon A Time In Mexico is a revenge story, only one told on a grand scale. It is the second sequel to Robert Rodriguez's ultra low budget El Mariachi. These are the stories of a guitar player known only as El Mariachi (Antonio Banderas) who seems to be perpetually seeking revenge on one crime lord or another for killing someone he loved. Mexico takes that theme and sets on a grand scale. While the previous two films were fairly small in terms of the people involved, Mexico elevates revenge to a national, maybe even international, level.
CIA Agent Sands (Johnny Depp) is looking to stir up some trouble. He has become aware of a plot by the crime lord Barillo (Willem Dafoe), to assasinate the president of Mexico. To do this he is going to pay a very handsome reward to General Marquez to have him attempt a coup. Sands enlists the aid of El Mariachi to kill Marquez after he kills the president. Why would El (they call him El for short) want to do this? Simple, Marquez killed El's wife (Salma Hayek) and daughter and left El for dead. Like I said, revenge, but on a grand scale. Sands wants the president dead, because the CIA doesn't care for him, and wants Marquez dead because he's nothing but trouble.
Sands is the glue that holds the films many loose ends together. He is enlisting the aid of countless individuals, playing on their individual desires to get what he wants. If all were to go smoothly, he could bump off several bad folks and walk away with a big pile of cash while barely lifting a finger. Beyond the people mentioned so far, he employs a thug Cucuy (Danny Trejo) who also works for Barillo, he entices the aid of a retired FBI agent (Ruben Blades) who wants revenge on Barillo, he bribes a Mexican cop (Eva Mendes) and uses an informant (Cheech Marin). So basically Sands piggybacks his highly convoluted plot on to the plot of the bad guys.
With a cast this large it's hard to call anyone the star but Johnny Depp comes closest. He probably has less screen time than Banderas but makes up for that with a semi-comic approach that makes the whole thing seem fairly surreal. I loved his constant wardrobe and hair changes to adapt to his surroundings. At times he appears in loud tourist wear, making himself seem harmless by standing out so much. I particularly loved his CIA t-shirt which says Cleavage Inspection Agent when read closely. At other times he takes on the tough guy dress of the other major figures. Depp's tongue in cheek approach seems to match the film. Yes, it's big bold and violent. But at the same time the violence is so over the top that it can be hard to take seriously. Depp seems to wink at us and say, 'that's okay, it isn't meant to be all that serious.'
Part of that over the top nature of the film would seem to be Rodriguez's desire to create a Mexican legend. The informant played by Cheech Marin tells a story of El Mariachi's first showdown with General Marquez. He calls it a myth and it certainly is the stuff of legends. No real person could have managed such amazing feats but El Mariachi has grown beyond a man and turned into a demigod, an iconic figure to be revered. El Mariachi is like a Mexican Hercules. The informant also points out that these things to gather embellishments with each retelling, a statement that could seem to describe this series of movies as well. It started with the cheaply produced El Mariachi and then became the more moderately budgeted Desperado and now hits theaters as the slick big budget Once Upon A Time In Mexico.
Rodriguez is infatuated with technical goodies and shot this movie with HD digital cameras like those employed by George Lucas for his Star Wars prequels. For the most part it's hard to tell but the occasional scene lacks the definition one would expect from film. It still a wild improvement over the digital video cameras employed on 28 Days Later. It also gave Rodriguez great freedom to play with the images to get exactly what he wanted. Mostly it works and provides an impressive visual palette but occasionally it falls flat and what should be an iconic moment just looks fake.
The movie's plot is obviously fairly convoluted with virtually no exposition to give it some depth. Then again it's also lightning paced and pure eye candy, so exposition probably would have actually lessened the fun. The action sequences are inventive and told with energy and style that makes every one of them a great stand alone piece to be savored. The characters are similar in that we don't really know much about them but exist in bold strokes that make them seem very much alive and colorful. Rodriguez seems to be a filmmaker who is overflowing with ideas. Digital cameras must seem like a godsend to him, allowing him massive freedom to try any number of those ideas. The downside is that story structure doesn't seem to be amongst his strengths. The story is almost secondary to his avalanche of ideas. But with a movie like this, it's hard to care. It moves so swiftly from great moment to great moment with highly quotable lines and wild action that there simply is time to care about what isn't working in the movie. It's just a lot of fun to watch. Later you'll probably start to question the details but if you go back and watch it again, you'll probably go right back to not caring. It's a high-wire act Rodriguez is playing but for the moment at least, he's getting away with it.
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