Machete

Geez, what to think?  Ordinarily I will fly into the plot, acting, story line or whatever.  I had to take a few days to think this over after I finished this movie and all I could come up with is, "Girls, if you are seriously considering a career in acting and want to go really far as an actress, don't show your boobs."  Another tip, if showing your boobs was the screen test and you won that part that way, it ain't your acting that anyone is after...or ever will be.  Case in point: the girl in the beginning who showed her boobs and was ensured a part in the movie by showing more will never be seen again.

Okay, to the movie.  Hmm, what wasn't in it: kittens, puppies, singing nuns, Goodnight Moon...  I felt like I was watching the equivalent of a burger joint that, after a bit, had been taken over by Koreans or South East Asians and had added Terriyaki to the menu: it had everything: fights, guns, explosions, racists, good guys, bad guys, good bad guys and bad good guys.  All good.  So much going on in here and, well, even with all that, I don't know that I could find many pluses.  

I always liked the cameo's or bit parts that Danny Trejo gets, but his starring role was too long in coming.  He was like John McCaine in the 2008 elections: I thought he was about to fall over and die at any second.  Steven Segal was in there and like Keith Richards to Mick Jagger, he helped make Danny Trejo look spry and healthy by comparison.

Gore, gore, and gore in the form of rolling heads and pulse propelled blood spurts.  Therefore, this is not really a kiddie flick.  Steven Segal was a bit of an expected surprise in that of late, he has actually gotten his butt handed to him.  I miss the Segal of yore.  What I could always appreciate is that he never lost a fight and more importantly, he never got beaten down within an inch of his life and by a miracle, found the strength to come back and barely win.  No, Steven Segal would just walk in and without changing expression, just beat the crap out of any and everyone.  Then he'd go mow a lawn or something.  I liked that.

Wow, here is a news flash, Lindsey Lohan was in this too, but she wasn't acting.  All that you saw of her were portions of her home movies that had been spliced in: e.g. we first see her passed out on a mattress in a crack house after a crack bender.  We then see her getting cozy with another nude woman.  Great...

Okay, dialogue is goofy, directing is fine, cinematography does its job of immitating the 70's style of grainy action films that had titles of "Biker Chicks from Hell" and "The Badland Banderos."  Very contrived plot of powerful racist white guys putting down the honest hard working little man.  Again, I am a bit tired of that plot line as it is like going back to a broken slot machine that doesn't always give exhorbitant returns, but for the writers and directors who keep playing these plot lines, at least there is little risk  if any and they are quaranteed at least some return on investment.