The Mexico Trilogy: El Mariachi, Desperado & Once Upon a Time in Mexico – Boxset Review

By Sarah Morgan

Stylish, action-packed with amazing stunts – what’s not to like about The Mexico Trilogy?

If you’re looking for something that isn’t going to tax your brain cells too much, and love nothing more than being distracted by one set piece after another, absolutely nothing at all.

To be fair, there’s a whole lot more to the first film in the series, 1993’s El Mariachi, than that. Made on a super-low budget, it became the Hollywood calling card for its writer-director, Robert Rodriguez. It’s a neo-Western that tells the simple tale of a guitar player who arrives in a small town hoping to find work in a local cantina.

However, a case of mistaken identity means he’s soon embroiled in a bitter feud. He also falls in love with a local woman who tries to help him, but when she’s killed, he plots revenge against the gangster responsible.

“Blood and gore”

Although made 20 or so years later, El Mariachi looks like the kind of grindhouse movie Roger Corman was producing in the 1970s for the drive-in circuit; it would sit nicely alongside the likes of the original Death Race 2000 and its ilk. And, as a fan of such movies, I can see nothing wrong with that whatsoever. Rodriguez would, incidentally, go on to collaborate with his friend Quentin Tarantino on a grindhouse homage, which combined his film Planet Terror with Tarantino’s Death Proof.

Although not originally intended to be released on a large scale, El Mariachi became a surprise hit, leading to the 1995 sequel Desperado. Suddenly armed with a bigger budget and a professional crew (its predecessor involved mostly amateurs), Rodriguez was able to replace Carlos Gallardo in the lead role with Antonio Banderas; a largely unknown Salma Hayek also appears as the musician’s love interest.

There’s more blood and gore this time around, with elements of the original’s plot reworked as our hero once again tracks down the drug lord who killed his lover. Sadly, her dog, who appeared in the first movie, is no longer around for the ride.

A longer gap followed between Desperado and the final film in the trilogy, Once Upon a Time in Mexico, which was released in 2003. This time, the musician foils an attempt to overthrow the Mexican president. He’s also out for revenge – again – with the killers of his wife and daughter the targets.

“Ambitious”

Presumably, Hayek was too busy/too big a star by the time production started, because she’s seen only in flashback. Banderas is once again mean and moody, while Johnny Depp joins in as a quirky CIA agent; he’s a real highlight throughout. Look out too for Eva Mendes, Willem Dafoe, Enrique Iglesias and Mickey Rourke in supporting roles.

While Once Upon a Time… clearly has the biggest budget and is the most ambitious of the three, it’s also the most disappointing. The story plays second fiddle to all the bells and whistles going on around it; Rodriguez seems to have fallen in love with stuntwork and special effects, to the detriment of the finished movie, shifting far away from the inventiveness of the original film.

Having said all that, this is nevertheless an entertaining trio, but one perhaps better watched with sizeable gaps in time between each entry, rather than back-to-back as I did, allowing a close comparison between the three. I suspect that viewed alone, without the others fresh in the mind, Once Upon a Time… might hold up better.

Anyone with even the slightest interest in how films are made should certainly watch all the special features on each disc. Rodriguez and his colleagues really get into the nitty-gritty of production; all their comments, but particularly those from Rodriguez, are invaluable.