Danny Trejo in "Machete"
Danny Trejo in "Machete"
A blade-wielding ex-federale hides out as a day laborer when he is double-crossed by a corrupt senator.
Rating: R for strong bloody violence throughout, language, some sexual content and nudity
Length: 105 minutes
Released: September 3, 2010 Nationwide
Cast: Danny Trejo, Jessica Alba, Robert De Niro, Michelle Rodriguez, Lindsay Lohan
Director: Robert Rodriguez, Ethan Maniquis
Writer: Robert Rodriguez
HOLLYWOOD — Say “hola” to Hollywood’s newest Latin vigilante.
“Machete” is the brainchild of idiosyncratic writer-director Robert Rodriguez. What started out as a fake movie trailer in the 2007 exploitation throwback, “Grindhouse,” has become a full-blown action film complete with a huge body count, starring veteran character actor Danny Trejo in his first leading role.
“This very much was made for the fans,” says Rodriguez, who was encouraged by the overwhelmingly positive reaction to the over-the-top commercial about a Mexican vigilante meting out justice shown between the two “Grindhouse” films that he and Quentin Tarantino made.
Trejo, who like Rodriguez is Mexican-American, also was eager to play the “Rambo” -like migrant worker turned justice-seeking vigilante. He regularly called his Austin-based friend to ask when they were going to make the movie. Eventually, Rodriguez acquiesced, and finished co-writing the script with his cousin Alvaro Rodriguez.
“It was like stepping into this guy,” says the gravelly voiced Trejo, whose pockmarked, weather-beaten face resembles an unpaved Texas road.
Actually, the path toward “Machete” began some 15 years earlier when Rodriguez was making what would become his breakthrough Western, “Desperado,” starring Antonio Banderas. Trejo came in to play a small part, but Rodriguez was so taken with the ex-con’s intimidating appearance, that he expanded the role — equipping the actor with a knife and encouraging him to start practicing.
Since that fateful meeting, Trejo has acted in several of Rodriguez’s movies, including “From Dusk Till Dawn,” the “Spy Kids” trilogy and the recent remake of “Predators,” which Rodriguez produced.
“In each of his movies, you’ll notice I’m some sharp object,” Trejo points out. “I was Razor Charlie in ‘From Dusk Till Dawn.’ I was Navajas (which means knife in Spanish) in ‘Desperado,’ and Cuchillo (another Spanish word for knife) in ’Predators.’” He also played a character named Machete in the “Spy Kids” movie.
The native Angeleno says his relationship with Rodriguez goes beyond the typical actor-director collaboration.
“We’ve watched each other’s kids grow up,” says the married father of three. “My son shadowed him on ‘Machete.’ It was like a college course on how to be a great director.”
Rodriguez says the idea for “Machete” gestated for years but finally grew into a real project after the “fake” trailer featuring Trejo as a knife-wielding vigilante struck a positive chord with movie audiences. The filmmaker used the action-packed trailer as a calling card to attract an eclectic group of actors to join the film, including Oscar winner Robert De Niro, legendary action star Steven Seagal, “Miami Vice’s” Don Johnson and tabloid queen Lindsay Lohan, to name a few.
“I would just show them the trailer and they could picture themselves being in the movie because it was so entertaining and so different — with this Mexican superhero,” says Rodriguez.
De Niro and Seagal, who’d previously worked with Trejo in other action films, simply wanted to support their colleague in his starring debut.
Trejo, who turned to acting after starting down the wrong path as a delinquent youth, says it was nice finally getting a chance to play the starring role after a career playing supporting roles in about 200 films and TV shows.
“It’s a little different because (in supporting roles) usually you show up, do your stuff and leave,” he says. But as the star, “you have to realize this is your movie. ... The only difference is that I got to kiss Jessica Alba.”
Alba and co-star Michelle Rodriguez (no relation to Robert) agree it’s about time Trejo got a chance to shine. They say he has a dangerous charisma many women find irresistible.
“You should see him on set,” says Alba, who plays a government immigration officer who becomes sympathetic to Machete’s plight. “Hot women were constantly falling at his feet.”
“He’s a sweetheart, man,” Michelle Rodriguez concurs. “I mean that guy’s heart could attract a thousand women. There’s something about him as a person that just is very innocent and sweet, even though in appearance it might not seem that way. It’s the face. The face is so rough. It’s so weathered that it looks like he’s been through so much that it would put you off. But when you look in his eyes you see this innocence.”
Robert Rodriguez says Trejo simply became Machete when he walked onto set.
“By osmosis, we’d rehearsed it over the past 14 years,” he says. “He just knows how to play that character.”
As Machete, Trejo carries 44 blades in his custom-made leather vest. His affinity for knives comes in handy in several fight scenes. One of the most memorable ones is when he makes an incredible escape from a hospital using an opponent’s intestines to rappel down a wall.
“The intestine is 10 times longer than the human,” says Rodriguez of the sequence, which is likely to draw both applause and groans from movie audiences.
There’s plenty more blood and gore in store, but Rodriguez insists it’s all in fun and a homage to the low-budget exploitation movies from the ’70s that inspired it.
The filmmaker compares his action-packed fight-fest to Sylvester Stallone’s “The Expendables,” which features a who’s who of veteran action stars and has become the sleeper hit of the summer.
“It’s almost a throwback to these old school action movies that are visceral, straight-up and a cathartic experience for audiences,” the filmmaker says.
Trejo plays the title character, a former Mexican policeman who has fled to the U.S. after being left for dead by a notorious Mexican drug kingpin. Hiding out as a day laborer in a Texas border town, Machete unwittingly gets caught up in a conspiracy in which he is falsely accused of shooting a powerful state senator. Eager to clear his name, Machete uses all the fighting skills he acquired as a Federale to catch the real perpetrators and expose the rampant corruption in the system. With illegal immigration as the backdrop, the action-packed drama is likely to ignite passions on both sides of the issue.
“The timing is pretty amazing,” says Rodriguez.
“When you make an exploitation film, you always want to have a real issue,” he says. “People talk about immigration, but they won’t talk about corruption that actually exists between Mexico and the U.S.”
Rodriguez says his film is meant to entertain, not take sides on the issue. Still, he can’t help but marvel how life has begun to imitate art.
“As much as I tried to make it as made-up as possible, I couldn’t escape the fact that reality is stranger than fiction,” he says.
Rodriguez hopes to have the opportunity to continue the “Machete” story.
“It will have to span several movies in order for him to sort anything out,” he says.
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