Once Upon A Time In Mexico
(2003)
|
With ONCE UPON A TIME IN MEXICO, filmmaker Robert Rodriguez follows the further adventures of El Mariachi (Antonio Banderas), the guitar-and-gunslinging hero who has been leading a quiet life, but longs to get revenge for the murder of his love (Salma Hayek). When quirky CIA agent Sands (Johnny Depp) roots out El Mariachi for a special assignment, he comes out with all pistols blazing. Soon, a retired FBI agent (Ruben Blades), a drug kingpin (Willem Dafoe), a criminal on the run (Mickey Rourke), and a double-dealing fed (Eva Mendes) are all in on the action, which involves a plot to kill the Mexican president and shift the balance of power in Mexico. |
While you can see why director Robert Rodriguez might want to remake his 1992 ultra-low-budget debut El Mariachi as Desperado (1995) to take advantage of a studio-sized budget, remaking it yet again would seem to indicate that he's stuck in a groove. But that's almost exactly what he's done in this third outing, which again stars Antonio Banderas as the wandering South American minstrel with an arsenal in his guitar case to take on evil drug lords. He's aided and abetted this time by an unorthodox CIA agent (Johnny Depp) who's the most entertaining thing in the film, possibly because he's the only genuinely original element. The action is certainly spectacular and inventive — Rodriguez is one of the best editors of mayhem around — and Salma Hayek is suitably sultry, but none of this can quite make up for the feeling that we've seen all this before.