Once Upon a Time in Mexico (**)
review by Jon Waterman

He’s back for a third time. El Mariachi is brought out of some sort of retirement or something to battle yet another drug lord. This time the CIA is involved and so is the president. They’re all entangled in some web-like thingy of stuff.

You really won’t hear me say this much, but honestly, the plot sort of bogged down the movie. With all the political intrigue and whatnot that was involved, I sort of got lost in terms of what direction the film was trying to take. There got to be so many characters each with their own main story line and they just weren’t put together efficiently. Also, I guess I just expected there to be a lot more substance to the Mariachi character and his storyline. He was a backburner character this time around. Instead we’re focusing on Johnny Depp for most of the film.

On the one hand, this is a bad move. The film franchise has been built around the Mariachi and his extremely cool gun-toting ways. One would expect this trend should continue and let us see him plow through several dozen baddies. On the other hand, this move helps the film a lot. Mariachi’s new friends include Enrique Iglesias (thankfully doesn’t talk much) and some other uninteresting dude. Depp is one of the best actors around and proves it once again here. Director Robert Rodriguez wisely chose to put a great performance in the forefront and let it take over. I wouldn’t have minded the political thriller/espionage angle of the film so much if everyone else was as good as Depp and if it were written more clearly and less sporadically.

Rodriguez isn’t only the director. He also wrote, co-produced, edited, production designed, performed as cinematographer, operated the camera himself and wrote original music for the film. As far as I’m concerned, he’s the only true auteur still working in the Hollywood system. Anyone can appreciate that. However, sometimes this can be a bad thing. If you are the one in control of every aspect of a film, you can be overwhelmed with your vision and you won’t have a separate editor telling you what could work better. You won’t have a cinematographer to say, “well, what if we tried it like this.” I’m not trying to discount his work, but an open mind is a wonderful thing and I hope his was during the shoot.

Lastly, I want to talk about the use of digital video. Rodriguez is a huge proponent for digital. Anyone that knows me or reads me regularly can easily tell that I’m pretty much against digital in virtually every form. When editing, it’s a humungous help, but when shooting or trying special effects, I prefer more tangible means. The movie (forget I used the word “film” in this review) looks really good. Digital is slowly getting closer to 35mm quality. Robert knows what he wants from lighting and composition. He still maintains his fluid style and provides us with incredible visuals. But there are times when it just looks bad. The whites are extremely overblown and any time large flames appear I cringed.

So…speaking on overall terms. The action sequences were too far and few between. Depp rocked the house and stole the show, but that’s because he was on the screen most of the time. The story let a heck of a lot to be desired. And Robert Rodriguez still knows how to make a visually interesting movie (although he should shoot on film). Definitely not as good as the first two, but still somewhat fun.

respond to jon@filmbrats.com