The Mexico
Trilogy, Robert Rodriguez’s brainchild, begins with El Mariachi, a movie
that tells a tale of mistaken identity. Made in 1992 with a production budget
of less than $8,000, Rodriguez used amateur actors and low-budget effects to
bring this story to life.
Rodriguez wrote, directed, produced, and even handled the cinematography and
editing for this film. Shot in Mexico and entirely in Spanish, this movie laid
the groundwork for 1995’s Desperado,
which starred Antonio Banderas and had a much larger budget.
The movie’s plot
is straightforward, and no amount of gunfire is spared. Two men work together
on a job, and one screws the other over. The one who got screwed, Azul, ends up
in jail, while the betrayer, Moco, remains free.
Moco calls Azul in jail, claiming he’s sending help to break him out. Instead,
he sends three hitmen to kill Azul. The plan backfires when Azul kills the
hitmen, breaks out of jail, and goes after Moco, dressed in black and carrying
a guitar case full of guns.
On the other
side of the story, we have a young mariachi looking for work. He’s also
wandering around town in black, carrying a guitar case. Moco spreads the word
among his men to find and kill Azul, describing him as a man in black with a
guitar case.
You can guess
how the mistaken identity starts and how the mariachi is forced to pick up a
gun to defend himself.
For me, Columbia
Pictures, which took over the movie and invested more in post-production to
make it marketable in the U.S., are the real winners. This movie spawned two
financially successful sequels for them.
El Mariachi is significant for setting a Guinness World Record as the
lowest-budget film to earn over a million dollars at the box office. It also
paved the way for the rise of independent films in the ’90s.
Out of the three
movies in the trilogy, El Mariachi has the highest critic approval
rating. From my perspective, knowing the movie’s background makes me appreciate
the work done on it even more. The lead actor, who plays the mariachi looking
for work, delivers a performance that makes it hard to believe the cast were
amateurs. Everyone involved seemed determined to stand out, and in my view,
they succeeded.
This is one of
the best things about independent films, the makers have absolute control of
how things will be.
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