Once upon a time in Mexico

Language : English / Spanish

Year of release : 2003

Run time : 1h42m

Genre : Action

Cast : Antonio Banderas, Johnny Depp, Salma Hayek, Mickey Rourke, Willem Dafoe, Danny Trejo, Enrique Iglesias, Eva Mendes

The movie is the sequel to Desperado, and was written, scored,photographed,edited, directed and produced by Robert Rodriguez.

CIA officer Sands is asking about El Mariachi. After he finds out about him, he tracks him down, and asks him to k1ll general Marquez, a corrupt Mexican army officer, who was hired by the drug lord Barillo to k1ll the Mexican president and overthrow the government.

El Mariachi reminisces about his wife Carolina, who was also Marquez's love interest, who kept on hunting them down, until he k1lled her and their daughter, thinking he k1lled El Mariachi too.

 

Sands is also working on FBI agent, Ramirez, who's partner was k1lled by Barillo, to k1ll Barillo.

Ramirez takes his unvalid badge and starts investigating, trying to get an American fugitive who works for Barillo to help him get the information he needs by putting a camera on his dog.

The movie has many characters who double cross each other, and it feels very convoluted.

Salma Hayek appears for probably 10 minutes. Even Antonio Banderas is pretty much a secondary character in his own franchise!

The characters are unlikeable, as they turn out to be the baddies, like for example, Sands, who's a CIA agent, but k1lls the cook because he did his job well, of cooking the best dish he ever ate! WTF?!

FBI agent Ajedrez turns out to be the daughter of Barillo, and evil.

The first action scene of the movie was cool, and made me laugh because the bartender kept on moving the bar around! I also liked the scene in which Antonio and Salma fall from their window while chained to each other, although unrealistic. This was the time when everybody was inspired by the fighting scenes in The Matrix and tried to copy them, forgetting those scenes happened in the mind, not in the real world.

The acting was good. Just like with Captain Sparrow, Johnny Depp created the look and mannerisms of his own character, Sands.

The soundtrack written by Robert Rodriguez at times sounded good, at times I didn't like it.

The movie received mixed reviews, and grossed almost 99 million dollars against a budget of 29 million.

Cinema Score audiences rated the movie a B-.

Rating : Could have been a contender !