El Mariachi Trilogy (1992-2003)

In the small town of Acuña, a traveling Mariachi (Carlos Gallardo), still looking for his place in life and living gig-to-gig and out of cheap motel rooms, is about to be mistaken as a player in a violent criminal dispute. Azul (Reinol Martinez) is demanding his cut of money from crime boss Moco (Peter Marquardt), but the slick-haired, dressed-in-white Moco isn't about to turn over all that cash to a two-bit nothing like Azul. He sends several of his best men – armed – to take out Azul, but Mr. Blue gets the jump on them and he and his men put an end to their tiny little lives. Moco sends more men after Azul – they're told to hunt down and kill a man dressed in black and toting a guitar case full of weapons – but they find the Mariachi instead, also dressed in black and carrying a guitar case, only his is actually home to his livelihood and not several deadly weapons. When the bullets start flying, the Mariachi is forced to set aside the guitar and quickly learn the art of war if he's to survive to play his guitar another day.

It's the greatest film ever made on a $7,000 budget. El Mariachi may very well be Director Robert Rodriguez's finest film, and he made it for less than the cost of a low-end used car. He was either really feeling it when he made the movie, or there's an awful lot of talent swirling around inside his body, and considering his penchant for making some of the most entertaining fare around, the smart money's on the latter. El Mariachi is a poster child for moviemaking done right; here's a picture that's the 180-degree opposite of something like Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, a movie that emphasizes sheer spectacle above all else rather than give greater import to substance, story, and raw directorial know-how. El Mariachi's simplicity of story certainly helps, but Rodriguez has managed to give his film not necessarily a polished and professional look – there's an unmistakable rawness not only in the gritty façade but in the obvious on-the-fly tip-of-the-shoestring-budget – but certainly one that seems much larger than the money allotted would allow, the film a prime example of what both know-how and unparalleled filmmaking instinct can achieve. Best of all, El Mariachi isn't just a feel-good story of a director who scraped together his pennies and made a decent movie; the film transcends everything moviegoers know about how the business works. It's not always about the most "0's" in a budget but rather the heart and determination of a visionary filmmaker to do something that shouldn't be possible: to craft a superior movie on nothing but fumes, dedication, smarts, and raw instinct.

The film's "less is more" approach – it's made more on force of will than anything else, surrounded, of course, by a top-notch story – is also evident in the basics of the storyline and the acting. At its center, El Mariachi is movie of coincidence, of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, or at least wearing the wrong clothes and playing the wrong instrument in the wrong place and at the wrong time. From that little bit of thematic convenience comes a story where innocent lives are destroyed through little more than simple miscommunication and bad luck, particularly for the Mariachi and Domino, one an outsider and the other a girl whose past is about to catch up with her through circumstance rather than by choice. The simplistic storyline is reinforced by several surprisingly solid performances from the primary characters. There are no big names in here – the acting is rather raw, in fact – but the performances add all the more realism to the movie, anyway. These characters are small-time, small-town people who aren't "professionals" in any sense of the word, whether the budding Mariachi who has yet to live up to the standards set by his forefathers or the criminals who seem to have made it as far in life thanks to cunning and luck more so than skill and brains. Most are little more than hired thugs off the street, working for a couple of two-bit crime bosses who, outside of their little comfort zone, wouldn't be much more than a speck in the eye of larger, more sophisticated criminal empires. The "off the street" feel of the performances almost seem to heighten the quality of the movie in a strange, roundabout way, adding further credence to the way things work in this small corner of the world, with, of course, slightly better efforts from the actors who play Moco and Azul on the "bad guy" side of the ledger and the Mariachi and Domino on the other.

The once innocent Mariachi (Antonio Banderas, The Mask of Zorro) has become a fearsome gunslinger, and now he's tracking down a nasty crime boss by the name of Bucho (Joaquim de Almeida, Clear and Present Danger), but to get to him he must first find him and plow through his army of well-armed hired thugs. With the help of a chatty barhop (Steve Buscemi, Youth in Revolt), El Mariachi find himself on the trail of his target. As he kills anyone in his way and dodges bullets as he and his guitar case full of guns marche on towards the prize, he meets a beautiful woman named Carolina (Salma Hayek, Grown Ups) who runs a local bookstore and becomes entangled in El Mariachi's destiny. With love blossoming and bullets in the air, can the two survive an onslaught of adversaries and win the day over Bucho and his men?

What is Desperado? Not much more than a fun, flamboyant action extravaganza. Director Robert Rodriguez re-imagines/follows up El Mariachi with Antonio Banderas in the lead, the actor playing the same guitar-case toting Mariachi from the first film (look for original Mariachi Carlos Gallardo in a small supporting role), this time with a larger budget and several more guns in tow. Indeed, Desperado is about big guns and bigger shootouts, a film with a bloody good and undeniably fun style that tosses lead downrange like nobody's business and gleefully shoots up the screen in one of the more honest-to-goodness guns-blazing pictures to hail from the 1990s. The picture is one of excess, and Rodriguez pulls it off incredibly well; Desperado oozes a unique style surrounded by handsome people who still look good bloodied and bruised and flying though the air in slow-motion as they keep their fingers pressed firmly against the trigger, the film slowing down just long enough to tell a few jokes, have fun with a couple of quick-to-die side characters, and even toss in a sex scene with a naked Salma Hayek just for you-know-whats and giggles, as if this weren't already one of the most honest-to-goodness red-blooded all-time guy movies and need some extra allure to pull in reluctant viewers.

And on that note, it wouldn't be a 1990s guy movie without one of Steve Buscemi and Quentin Tarantino, so of course Desperado features both. They both show up just long enough for a few memorable scenes, but that's enough time to set things up and give the movie some offsetting humor; Desperado couldn't just be guns and Salma, could it? Whereas the violence is the heart of the film, the picture's intriguing side characters – whether Buscemi and Tarantino or even the young would-be guitar playing boy – are its soul. Desperado is a finely-tuned and wonderfully harmonious Action film from its characters on down; Banderas is excellent as the Ruger P90-wielding Mariachi whose as scruffy and tough as he is tenderhearted, and the remainder of the players seamlessly disappear into their parts in what is another Robert Rodriguez gem of an Action movie. El Mariachi might be the "better" of the two films if only for the way it manages a level of excellence on not much more than a wing and a prayer, but Desperado – itself no high-dollar extravaganza – is the more polished of the two.

It's been some time since "El" (Antonio Banderas, The Mask of Zorro) fought the good fight against Moco and pursued the criminal kingpin Bucho. He's settled down with Carolina (Salma Hayek, Grown Ups), but El's ugly past is about to catch up with the happy new family. Unfortunately, familial bliss is shattered when El, his wife, and daughter are caught in the crossfire in a shootout against General Emiliano Marquez (Gerardo Vigil). Some time later, El is recruited by a rogue CIA agent named Sands (Johnny Depp, Secret Window) to kill Marquez. The general is a central player in a planned coup against the sitting Mexican President. Behind the scenes of the coup is the devious Mexican drug kingpin Armando Barillo (Willem Dafoe, Spider-Man) who is himself targeted by a former FBI agent (Rubén Blades, The Devil's Own), also hired by Sands. As identities are revealed and allegiances challenged, violence erupts and threatens to not only tear apart Mexico, but the very fabric of good and evil in a showdown between heroes and villains that promises far-reaching personal and political consequences for all involved.

Call it an homage to the Spaghetti Western or a modern-day answer to The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, but Italy's scrumptious gunslinging celluloid Fantasies never had this much fast action and slick styling. Robert Rodriguez's Once Upon a Time in Mexico is a dazzling triumph of sight and sound, a masterpiece of violence-as-art, but unlike its predecessors, it attempts to weave in a story that's as complex as its high-flying visuals, and they ultimately don't mix as well as Rodriguez likely imagined. Mexico is fun in spurts and works well as a good-old-fashioned story of revenge, but instead of focusing solely on "El" and his quest for blood with a few necessary but ultimately anecdotal side characters to bring the story full circle, Rodriguez populates the film with a plethora of additional characters, all with their own complex arcs, that seem only to get in the way of, rather than prop up, the series' – and what should be the film's – bread-and-butter: guns, guns, guns. When the violence is on and the bullets are flying, Mexico is a success, regardless of whether it's El or any other character pulling the trigger, including an amazing sequence featuring a recently-blinded individual involved in a deadly shootout. Rodriguez's penchant for crafting top-of-the-line action sequences is unquestioned, and his talent is on full display here, but one can't help but feel like the movie could stand for a little less talk and a lot more action, to quote a popular Country tune, to stay in line with what made El Mariachi and Desperado such great films.

Nevertheless, Once Upon a Time in Mexico weaves its story in such a way that the action does remain the focus; it's just not as front-and-center as Desperado fans might have wished. Though Mexico's ultimately an inferior film, it's not for a lack of effort. To solidify something of a convoluted script that relies heavily on flashbacks and hidden allegiances, identities, and motives to tell its story, Rodriguez has brought on board a veritable who's who among contemporary Hollywood actors. Banderas and Hayek (sadly in a limited role) return, as does Cheech Marin and Danny Trejo playing a different, here longer-haired character who seems to favor guns over knives, and the film also features the likes of Johnny Depp, Mickey Rourke, Willem Dafoe, Eva Mendes, and Rubén Blades. While most of them never quite disappear into their roles – even Banderas seems more like Banderas rather than "El" – they all elevate the film on several levels, not only lending to it their good looks and professionalism, but adding a bit of star power that helps offset the slight disappointment that is the script and the shifted focus away from El and into the darker political and personal intrigue of its side characters. Still, Rodriguez continues with his excess action scenes that are as unrealistic as the A-list actor roster is long; no matter, watching bad guys get thrown several feet backwards thanks to the blast of a sawed-off shotgun and with the help of some fancy wirework is part of what makes this and Rodriguez's Mariachi series so great. His action is as robust as ever, and even if the story isn't quite all it's cracked up to be, Once Upon a Time in Mexico is a fun exercise in Action movie excess that's not to be missed.