 Desperado (1995) Desperado may be more watchable, purely on a visceral level, because the larger bankroll allows for some cooler shit to go down, plus, it benefits from the genuinely smouldering chemsitry between Antonio Banderas and Salma Hayek, undeniably the most attractive screen couple ever put before us. It's extremely difficult not to think about fucking one or both of them every time you see them, though as one friend remarked, "I'd hate to have to clean their shower." One notable difference between Desperado and Mariachi is that this one is clearly a post-Tarantino film, whereas the first one was in its own world. Quentin T. puts his stamp on Desperado with a typically selfish (though funny) cameo and a clear influence on the dialogue (also funny). I like Tarantino, but I do sort of wish he'd stop winking so fiercely at the camera … it's like, yeah, I get it, it's funny, what more do you need from me? The self-referential insiderness of his approach rubs me the wrong way, even as I enjoy what he does. Rodriguez mostly sticks to his own guns, though, and lets the story take off in his own way. The film is not as tight as its predecessor, but it offers some things Mariachi just couldn't, so it's a smoother ride overall. It would be too easy to dismiss Desperado as a remnant of that mid-'90s cinematic era when every action film seemed to be a bad Pulp Fiction knockoff. But just as, like, Green Day or No Doubt turn out to have surprising staying power, Desperado shows that not everything from that distasteful decade needs to be junked purely by association.
Review by Dr. Baptist |