Desperado (1995)

Desperado (1995)

6/10

Starring

Antonio Banderas

Salma Hayek

Directed by Robert Rodriguez

There’s something independent movies have over mainstream ones: the freedom for producers to deliver their vision without compromise. Desperado is aimed at a mainstream audience, and unlike the first film, El Mariachi, the charm of a small production is gone, filled with A-list actors and too many gunshots.

The only film in the Mexico Trilogy I’d seen before now was Desperado. It wasn’t spectacular for me back then, and even now, it’s just good to watch—nothing groundbreaking. Robert Rodriguez didn’t hold back on the violence in this movie; gunfire is everywhere. Thanks to a handsome budget of 7 million (a huge leap from the 8,000 he used for El Mariachi in 1992), we get a more robust story.
The shootouts are better choreographed, and the effects are polished for the TV screen. With Antonio Banderas taking over the lead role, the last scene from the first film—where Mariachi’s girl was killed—was redone. This time, we see Antonio Banderas looking genuinely heartbroken and devastated by her death. Unlike the first film, this one is in English.

The movie’s plot is set up like this: El Mariachi is hunting for a man named Bucho. Bucho wasn’t in the first film, but he’s the head of the criminal gang responsible for the death of Mariachi’s girlfriend.
El Mariachi is all over town, killing Bucho’s men and anyone who tries to hide Bucho’s whereabouts.
In a new town, after a bar massacre, he’s saved by a woman (Salma Hayek), who sees someone escaping the bar trying to shoot him in the back.
She not only saves him but also tends to his wounds. They fall for each other, and as luck would have it, she’s Bucho’s girlfriend—mirroring the tragedy of the first film.

Bucho discovers she’s protecting El Mariachi and attacks her store, burning it down. It’s here that El Mariachi sees Bucho for the first time.
From this point, the movie includes a cameo from the actor who played El Mariachi in the first film, and that’s it for this summary.

The acting here is far better than in the first film, and you can tell from the production quality that this movie had more money behind it.
In the end, after watching this, I still have more appreciation for Robert Rodriguez and what he was able to achieve with the first film. That said, this movie is a classic of the 90s.