The first thing you should know about Machete is that it is awesome. This movie knows exactly what it is, which is hilariously over the top and incredibly violent. Robert Rodriguez continues to excel in the genre of slickly made pastiches of trashy genres (Planet Terror, From Dusk Til Dawn).
For example at one point Machete(played by Danny Trejo "The Hardest Working Mexican in Hollywood") stabs a guy in the neck with a turkey thermometer. After the house he's in blows up, the thermometer boils over and shoots blood out the top. Sounds disgusting, but in context it is hilarious.
Lindsay Lohan's character is the embodiment of the this ridiculousness. She plays a parody of herself- the villain's daughter who is obsessed with doing whatever self-destructive stunts it takes to drive page views on her website. Despite her privileged life, she sneaks off every weekend to have drug-fueled sex romps in crack-houses (which her father ends by shooting everyone and reminding her that if she needs any drugs, all she needs to do is ask). After shooting illicit video for her website ("It's what my viewers want!") she is kidnapped and held in a church. She wakes up to see televisions stacked in the shape of a cross. This is a religious experience for Lohan, which in this movie means she dresses up like a nun and shoots a lot of anti-immigrant militia members with a .44 Magnum. Symbolism!!
The second, and more important thing, that you should know is that this is a movie that wears its politics on its sleeve. It's bloody, bloody sleeve. There are stand-ins for "America's Sheriff" Joe Arpaio, every race-baiting politician in America (Robert DeNiro, having a great time), and corporate interests who exploit illegal labor privately while publicly decrying it. These three characters like to go out in the Arizona desert and shoot immigrants and their families for sport. They take special joy in shooting the pregnant ones, because if their kids are born here they "get the same rights as us real Americans." Kind of scary how prescient this movie is, considering that it was in the can before Senators were publicly debating repealing the 14th amendment.
The evil Senator's plan is to frame Machete for an assassination attempt and then ride the wave of anti-immigrant hysteria into office. His campaign ads are essentially grindhouse movie trailers featuring over-the-top disturbing renditions of immigrants and labeling them parasites(flash to a shot of writhing maggots), and terrorists (flash to a shot of a terrorist attack), etc. They have that great deep, gravelly narration that every great grindhouse trailer has.
Ultimately DeNiro is shown to be just an opportunist. When circumstances change he is happy to throw on dayworker clothes, faded jeans and an oversized flannel shirt and fight alongside the illegals. The message is clear: fear-mongering politicians are not acting out of any conviction, just their own desire for power.
Other highly political events:
-Cheech Marin plays Machete's brother, a priest. There is a scene where he is literally crucified by the head of the corrupt Politician's PR team.
-Michelle Rodriguez is Shè(pretty clever), the leader of "The Network" which provides basic human services and support that are denied to illegal immigrants in America. She also organizes the immigrants in their tricked out low-riders (they shoot missiles and the hydraulics allow them to crush anti-immigrant militants- see it's functional, not stupid) when the inevitable conflict comes. This is, I'm sure, an exaggerated version of support networks that actually do exist, but it also strikes me as the right-wing nightmare. In a lot of racist's minds I'm sure it makes perfect sense that if illegal immigrants can provide each other basic support off the grid, they probably also have caches of weapons stored, ready for violence just in case.
-Deniro, dressed as a day laborer, ultimately killed by the anti-immigrant sentiment he created.
-Jessica Alba, the former immigrant turned Border Patrol agent, standing on the hood of her car rallying the day laborers gathered around the taco truck.
-"We didn't cross the border, the border crossed us"
-Machete ultimately rejecting the citizenship of a country that has mistreated him and others like him.
-American militants filming and broadcasting executions exactly the way Al-Qaeda has.
Other awesome things about this movie:
-During ultraviolent scenes the film will turn grainy and yellow, with cigarette burns, like it's an actual aged grindhouse reel. It's something that gives the film a level of detachment from the heightened reality while giving a nod to it's roots. When the bad guys commit ultra-violence, it is shown through a computer screen that goes digitally grainy.
-Machete rarely speaks and when he does, it is only in one-liners. "Machete don't text."
-"I just received a text." "What does it say?" "You just fucked with the wrong Mexican"
-There is a scene where Machete is locked in the backseat of a car by people pretending to be cops. He stabs the driver through the back of his seat with a Machete (go figure), and steers the car from the backseat by twisting the blade in his guts.
-Steven Segal commits Seppuku with a machete.
-Machete kills racist security gaurds with pruning shears and a weed-wacker that has knives instead of plastic wire.
-This movie has a Luchadore assassin, a Dog The Bounty Hunter character (played by "Sex Machine" from "From Dusk 'Til Dawn"), and Sopranos security guards
-Motorcycle with a minigun strapped to the front.
-Get Ready for the sequels: "Machete Kills" and "Machete Kills Again"
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