September 19, 2003 -- “Once Upon a Time in Mexico” is a disappointing sequel to “Desperado,” which in turn was a remake of “El Mariachi” the remarkable low-budget ($7,000!) modern Western that catapulted director Robert Rodriguez from small, independent films to major box office hits. Despite the big budgets that Rodriguez works with now, he has yet to duplicate the magic of “El Mariachi” in his remake and in this latest sequel.

“Once Upon a Time in Mexico” is a film which has a weak, convoluted story (also written by Rodriguez) and almost no character development. These are fatal flaws. A movie either needs a strong story or strong characters to succeed. This film has neither. What it does have are some amusing comic bits and a great deal of very bloody action. We see not one, but three empty eye sockets in the film, two of them bloody. We also see a face, from which the flesh has been removed, and a huge amount of carnage, all to no particular purpose.

Antonio Banderas plays El Mariachi, the mysterious guitar player and gunfighter who is hired by Sands (Johnny Depp of “Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl”), a mysterious CIA agent who is manipulating several people involved in a planned military takeover of the Mexican government. Others being manipulated by Sands are an expatriot named Billy (Mickey Rourke of “The Pledge”) and Jorge (Rubén Blades of “All the Pretty Horses”), a former FBI agent who has an old score to settle with drug kingpin Barillo (Willem Dafoe of “Auto Focus”). Billy works for Barillo and Barillo is the power behind the military coup. Yet another character is Cucuy (Danny Trejo of “Spy Kids”), a double-crossing character also involved in the impending coup. Another double-crossing conspirator is Ajedrez (Eva Mendes of “2 Fast 2 Furious”). Belini (Cheech Marin of “Spy Kids”) is yet another underworld character being manipulated by Sands. Also in the mix is a corrupt high government official and a corrupt military general. There is also a big pile of money involved in the plot, which Sands and some other people are after. El Mariachi also has a couple of mariachi gunsliger allies, Lorenzo (played by singer Enrique Iglesias) and Fideo (Marco Leonardi).

In addition to all those characters, there are more which appear in a series of flashbacks. The flashbacks tell the back story about El Mariachi and his family and why he wants revenge. El Mariachi's wife, Carolina, is played by Salma Hayek, yet another veteran of the “Spy Kids” trilogy of films, also directed by Rodriguez. Despite the complexity of all these diabolical plans and counter-plans, it is pretty obvious where the movie is headed. The basic story is a simple one, El Mariachi wants his revenge, and so does Jorge. The only question is how many of these so-called good guys will still be standing at the end of the story?

The action sequences are well-staged and the film looks good (it was all shot on digital video and later transferred to film). Rodriguez not only wrote and directed the film, but also acted as director of photography and did the editing. Rodriguez's strengths are his versatility and his ability to complete a project on time and on budget. It may be, however, that he is trying to do too much and is spreading himself too thin. He may discover what George Lucas did after he directed “Star Wars,” that these big budget films are too big for one man to handle. Lucas solved the problem by moving upstairs, becoming an executive producer and leaving the details to others. It seems to me Rodriguez's best films were smaller projects, “El Mariachi” and the original “Spy Kids,” movie where both story and character development were strong.

Aside from Johnny Depp's edgy, amoral character, Sands, and the earnest characters of Rubén Blades's Jorge and Pedro Armendáriz's El Presidente, the characters in this film are thin, bland and uninteresting. There is little difference between the good guys and the bad guys, consequently, there is little point to the battle. Banderas looks good, but he's not a good enough actor to make his thin, underdeveloped character interesting. Ditto for Salma Hayek. Even a fine actor like Willem Dafoe can't do anything with his one-dimensional character of Barillo. Dafoe could have made a great villain in this film (as he was in “Spider-Man” and “Shadow of the Vampire”) but his character is given very little screen time. The same is true for Cheech Marin's character, Belini. He could have been a more interesting ally for El Mariachi. This is a real missed opportunity. Instead of a great film, or even a good film, what we have here is an average film with a lot of wasted talent. It is long on action and style, but short on plot and compelling characters. This film rates a C.

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Copyright © 2003 Robert Roten. All rights reserved.
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