Cutting Two Ways

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Here's an artefact for you. 2013's Machete Kill, a movie starring Mexican Americans and future Trump supporters that vigorously advocates for illegal Mexican immigrants to the U.S. Robert Rodriguez directed this sequel to his 2010 film Machete as more of an exploitation parody than its more sincere predecessor. It's pretty funny, and it's a lot more enjoyable than its 29% Rotten Tomatoes score suggests.

The divergence in critical reception between the first and second film is likely explained by the presence of Mel Gibson in the second as the villain. The presence of liberal darling Lady Gaga in a minor role was not enough counterbalance. She appears in only a few scenes but still earned a Golden Raspberry nomination, which is hard not to see as politically or misogynistically motivated, considering how well she's distinguished herself as an actress in the years since. I call her a liberal darling but, as a practicing Catholic, I suspect Gaga has more than a few conservative ideals.

Once again, the film stars Danny Trejo as the title character, the badass freedom fighter Machete. The first Machete from 2010 was the first time I ever heard of ICE. The sequel finds Machete working with Jessica Alba as a rogue ICE agent and we join the two ambushing a bunch of military, who ironically look more like ICE to-day. This movie was made three years before Trump was first elected to office and it's almost difficult to imagine how different life was. The film features Charlie Sheen (credited by his birth name, "Carlos Estevez") as a president who answers the phone when he's in bed with three women. This was back when people liked to fantasise about the president being a rule breaking wild man. To borrow a Morrissey lyric, "That joke isn't funny anymore, it's too close to home and too near the bone."

A recurrent line in the film is "Justice and the law aren't always the same thing." In the movie, this justifies Machete doing all kinds of crazy things to get a cartel boss with his heart wired to a nuclear weapon across the Mexican border but it has the clear real world implication for illegal Mexican immigrants. But some might use the phrase to justify the ICE officer who shot a woman in the face. Eerily, Machete Kills features a few instances of women being shot in the face, including Jessica Alba in that opening scene.

But I said this movie was funny, didn't I? Just like the fake trailer from Grindhouse that served as impetus for these films, the concept of every scene seems to be Rodriguez trying to find something to do that's crazier than you'd expect. The first film had a memorable scene with Machete using a man's entrails, this one has Machete throw an adversary's intestines into helicopter blades. Sofia Vergara heads a brothel and brandishes a bra with gatling gun nipples, although there's no nudity in this film, fitting more of the exploitation parody tone than a straightforward exploitation film. One scene in which Trejo has sex with Amber Heard features a caption telling viewers to put on their 3D glasses just as she's taking off her dress and the screen transforms into meaningless, distorted colours.

This was a couple years before Heard married Johnny Depp and it's certainly not hard to see what he saw in her. The film also has Elon Musk in a cameo, a man whom Heard dated after she broke up with Depp, though they don't share a scene.

There are a lot of big names in this film. Also present are Walton Goggins, Cuba Gooding Jr., Michelle Rodriguez, and Antonio Banderas.

Machete Kills is available on Amazon Prime in Japan.