ONCE UPON A TIME IN MEXICO

Director: Robert Rodriguez (El Mariachi, Spy Kids, Desperado)
Starring: Antonio Bandares, Johnny Depp, Salma Hyek, Mickey Rourke, Eva Mendes

El Mariachi, a low budget uber-action flick by Robert Rodriguez, has somehow spawned a trilogy culminating in this interesting, but flawed film. The problem is that the character of El Mariachi has no business having more than a single film made about him. He's a gun-slinging mariachi guitarist who shoots people in inventive ways. You know, shooting five bad guys while doing a pirouette, or launching rockets from the neck of your guitar. Really over-the-top and highly choreographed stunts.

It's all a bit disappointing since quite a lot of this film (the conclusion of the 'trilogy') is actually very interesting. None of that has to do with El Mariachi, however. Johnny Depp plays a a much more wonderfully absurd character than Antonio Banderas' El Mariachi. He's a CIA agent fomenting rebellion in a mythical Mexico - and loving every minute of the mayhem. There were probably a half dozen times in this movie where I thought this could have been a wonderful plot twister filled with joyously absurd characters (a la The Tailor of Panama). Instead, director Rodriguez seems to have trouble keeping the plot up with his overdone action sequences.

What really lacks, again and again, is that the central character is just so ... silly. He's an enigma in the movie, a mythical question mark, but I'm simply not interested in finding out more about him. I wasn't in El Mariachi. I wasn't in Desperado. I'm not now. The difference between those films and this one is Johnny Depp. He lifts this movie a full grade. Great performance. Not to be unfair, the action sequences were spectacular and the visuals stunning, as well. Without Depp's character, however, they wouldn't be enough to pull this movie through. B-minus, as a grade, is often the territory of movies that could have been really good, but failed. Indeed, this is one of them films.

(P.s. Selma Hayek is hotter than anyone has a right to be in this movie.)

Standouts: Johnny Depp
Blowouts: The El Mariachi character.

Grade: B-