Movie Review: El Mariachi

Seven thousand dollars. That can buy you a decent used car. It could take you a world-wide trip. Or, if you’re director Robert Rodriguez, it can make you a movie.

In 1992, Rodriguez and a bunch of his friends round up two lights, a camera, a few rolls of film and went to work. The result was El Mariachi, a gritty, dirty little action flick about a fresh faced, good-natured guitar player and the merciless assassin the Mexican mob mistakes him for. Add a sexy love interest named Domino, a cold-as-ice villain and a few car chases and gunfights and you’ve got a perfect little cult classic.

The plot need not be described with any particularity. The pieces of it are mentioned above and should be familiar to anyone who’s sat in the back of a dark theater and watched Arnold Schwartzenagger jump out of an exploding helicopter. The characters, likewise, are cut almost whole from the cloth of other action movies. The story is dispensable. The action is not. The movie remarkably generates the same thrills on a shoe-string budget that bigger action movies so often fail to generate with several million dollars more. When the Mariachi leaps off a balcony, guitar case between his legs, onto a moving truck, it doesn’t matter how much the movie cost, only that it’s exciting.

Much of that excitement comes from the playful way Rodriguez uses his camera. The action scenes are shot in a rough, kinetic style and set against colorful, sun-beaten Mexican locales. Cuts are frequent. Long conversations uninterrupted by a bullet to someone’s brain are seldom. Rodriguez makes liberal use of “cheesy” techniques like slow motion, fast motion, and dramatic zooms. The result is a zippy energy that runs through nearly every scene in the film, action and otherwise. One short sequence finds a gang-leader’s two thugs opening the door to their boss’ shabby motel room. They’re immediately faced with a trio of gun-toting girls, woken from a nap with the gang leader, popping into frame from under a couch and pointing their guns straight at the camera to a chorus of “clicks.” Rodriguez holds the shot for a moment, cuts to the faces of the two surprised thugs, and then back to the girls as they collapse into giggles. The kind of quick tension and release perks the mind and distracts the eye, and that’s not even an action sequence.

None of this is to say that the movie doesn’t believe in its story. It does, and it provides just enough background for us to get emotionally involved with the characters without distracting from the gunplay. The unforced acting certainly helps; the performances of the actors playing both Domino, a sensual, street-smart bartender, and the Mariachi himself go a long way toward convincing us of the character’s reality. Like everything else in the movie, they came cheap. Neither had acted professionally before the film was made, and their performances have an unstudied grace that matches the movie's technique. The Mariachi himself is charmingly earnest; we believe him when he tells Domino that he can’t drink because “my voice is my life.” Domino plays off him nicely, hard-boiled where he is soft and down-to-earth where his head is lost in the clouds. It’s an old movie permutation, but it’s one that works.

Of course, we can’t let this distract us from the real purpose of El Mariachi: guns, attitude, and a seven thousand dollar budget. The tiny budget, indeed, often threatens to become the real star of the show. The movie is more than entertaining enough on its surface, but when one considers how little it cost it becomes something of a marvel, almost as much fun to think about as to watch. One can’t help but think: if he can do all that for that little, what isn’t possible? El Mariachi is an inspiration to aspiring filmmakers everywhere, and a great south-of-the-border action movie that will appeal to almost anyone. Give it a rent.