El Mariachi Marathon
This weekend we had ourselves a 'El Mariachi' marathon. We started early sunday morning with the original 'El Mariachi', followed by 'Desperado' and 'Once upon a time in Mexico'.
Here's a review of those movies, which I think you should see at one point in your live... ;-)

El Mariachi
This is Robert Rodriguez' first full feature film, shot in 1992 with obviously a low budget. Although the film material is terrible, especially compared to 'Desperado' which was shot only 3 years after, the story is the best of the three movies. An innocent 'Mariachi', travelling musician, gets confused for a gangster who's trying to get money from a drugs dealer. In the end, the drugs dealer kills El Mariachi's girlfriend and shoots him in the hand, finishing his carreer as a musician.
The tagline says it all: He didn't come looking for trouble, but trouble came looking for him

This movie scores 4/5

Desperado
The first one I ever saw. This movie had a bigger budget, which you can see in the better effects and the bigger actors. El Mariachi is played by Antonio Banderas and the cast also includes Salma Hayek (the mexican babe we also saw in From Dusk till Dawn), Cheech Marin (also seen in From Dusk till Dawn), Joaquim de Almeida (bad guy in the third season of 24), Steve Buscemi (to many movies to mention here), Quentin Tarantino (tells the best joke ever in this movie), Danny Trejo (and another one in From Dusk till Dawn) and... Carlos Gallardo (the original El Mariachi) shows up as one of El Mariachi's buddy's.
The story, El Mariachi killed the drugs dealer in the first movie, now he's looking for the drugs dealer's boss. When he's about to lay his revenge on 'Bucho', he finds out that Bucho is none other than his own brother. In the end he kills his brother anyway and escapes the scene with lovely bookstore owner Salma Hayek. Although the story is more of the same, i.e. revenge, the effects are amazing and the setting is very good.

This movie scores 4/5

Once Upon a Time in Mexico
And then, the finale of this marathon is Once Upon a Time in Mexico. Next to Antonio and Salma, this time a large part is played by Johnny Depp. The story is hard to explain, because at some time you will ask yourself, who was playing who again?
Basically it's about the CIA (Johnny Depp) is assisting a revolution in Mexico and at the same time trying to prevent the revolutionist (a mexican general sponsored by a mexican drugslord) from coming to power by killing him. Although Salma Hayek is on the credits, she only appears in flashbacks that El Mariachi has about what happened in between the now and 'Desperado'.
The effects are very good, the one-liners are great, but the story is a bit confusing and more of the same, revenge.

This movie scores 3/5

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