Bless me, Father, for I have just killed quite a few men.
No shit. From what I hear, you cleaned out the
entire Tarasco bar. Nice job, asshole. Now you're gonna
have every hitman in Coahuila looking for you. Things got out of hand. Couldn't avoid
it. But I told you no more bloodbaths. I told you.
Bucho is the last one. After him, I'm finished.
No, I'm finished. They killed the woman you loved. Okay,
then they shot through your hand, 2 points. Hey, wake up.
There is no payback for that.
Walk away. Trust me,
this is one you're not going to want to see through to the end.
What do you mean? Let's just say I've done some checking around
and Butcho is not someone you want to mess with. Trust me on this.
I cannot live without Butch. You don't expect to live much longer? Fine.
I do. Seriously, you need any more help? Don't call me.
Call your friends, Camper and Kino. They're crazy anyway. No, no, no, but I
should be able to count on you. You. Those days are
gone. Wait, hey. Come on. Good luck. Don't get shot.
It's 2 Dads 1 Movie.
It's the podcast where 2 middle-aged dads sit around and shoot
the shit about the movies of the '80s and '90s. Here are your hosts,
Steve Paulo Hello everybody,
welcome to another episode of 2 Dads 1 Movie. I'm Steve. And I'm Nic.
And today we are talking about the 1995 action classic
Desperado from Robert Rodriguez, who was one of these kind
of early to mid-'90s auteurs that kind of came out. We saw last
week, we watched Clerks from Kevin Smith, which is very similarly kind of that thing.
And of course, there's Quentin Tarantino and Richard Linklater, and I'm sure plenty that I'm
forgetting. Um, but yeah, this was, this was Rodriguez's kind of studio
debut. Yeah. After doing El Mariachi in '93. So, uh, this was
for 2 Dads 2 Decades. So this was our '95 pick, and Nic, you picked
it for us. So tell us a little bit about your history with Desperado.
Yeah, uh, this one caught me at the right time, I think,
uh, catching it, you know, when we're talking about all these movies,
blockbuster era, right? And so it came out in '95. I,
I definitely didn't see it in the theater, but saw it like as it was
released on video, and it was definitely one of those, dude, look how cool this
is. It's great. He's got 2 guns at once. Like, this is part of
the 2 guns at once craze that we've really never left. Yeah, right. And,
uh, and it just felt so cool and it felt so different.
Like, there was just a real mood to it at the time, and I thought,
oh man, this is what cool guys do. This is how— look at this chick.
Yeah, that's because he's so cool and all that stuff. Um, and,
and I haven't watched it since then, and I haven't revisited the movie,
so I thought it'd be fun to talk about and see, like, is it still
cool? Does it still, you know, or does it seem stupid? Because sometimes you watch
these things, you're like, oh my God, I can't believe I thought— like, Roondog Saints
or something, like stuff that it's like, oh Jesus. So,
uh, yeah, and I thought this one would be fun to chat about. And we
haven't seen, you know, getting— like you said, getting into some of these very important
directors of the era. Like, it's good to get some Robert Rodriguez in the mix
because I don't think we're gonna do Spy Kids. No, no. But I mean,
From Dusk Till Dawn is a likely candidate, right? And but in a lot of,
a lot of Rodriguez's great stuff too was in the early 2000s. You know,
I think that's when like Planet Terror was. And obviously then the, this Desperado
is the second film in the El Mariachi trilogy, right? El Mariachi
'93. This was '95. And then Once Upon a Time in Mexico with Ben Darius
and Johnny Depp was in like, I think '03 or something. So not, not in
our categorization of films we'll cover, but this was just something
to know that this was, this had both a prequel and a sequel.
So yeah, that's cool. I, for my part, I saw El Mariachi in college
when I was an insufferable film student. Nice. And had to go back and watch
like all the, you know, I mean, I was already really well familiar with like
Tarantino and Smith and Linklater and was like, well, I got to, you know,
this is like, this is, this is the group that is mimicked
by or is a mirror of the 1970s when like Spielberg,
Scorsese, Coppola, and De Palma were all kind of coming out and like,
you know, this wave of American auteurs. Yeah. And I don't— I think
history has borne out that no, Tarantino, Rodriguez, and Smith and Linklater were not Scorsese,
Spielberg, you know, De Palma, and Coppola. But I mean, I mean, you know,
Tarantino certainly has had— yeah, I mean, a run of really good stuff.
Yeah, for sure, for sure. But maybe not quite to that level. So yeah,
so I saw El Mariachi. I never saw Desperado, and I'm not even really sure
why. It just kind of never caught me. I wasn't as big a fan of
El Mariachi as I was of like Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction. So I think
I just kind of gravitated in this style of
like '90s American cinema. I think I just was pulled more towards Tarantino than Rodriguez,
you know. Yeah, so I thought it'd be really I'm, you know,
happy to see it. Um, have not seen Mariachi since college,
so I really don't have a lot of frame of reference. A lot of this
felt very familiar. Yeah. Uh, I don't know as much if
like exact— I kind of want to go back and watch Mariachi now because I
don't know if it's like exact set pieces were taken or if it was just
the feel of a tragedy has occurred, he's hunting down the killers, you know,
kind of thing. Because the Mariachi, there's the, there's the, there's the mistaken identity part
of it as well. So there's, it's like a different story, but a lot of
this felt very similar. to that movie. Yeah, I mean, it is just
generally— we'll get into it, but it's kind of hard to tell like what's a
flashback and what's not because it's generally the same kind of shit happening,
right? Yeah, for sure. Um, yeah. All right, good. I'm excited
to chat then and excited that you got to see it finally. Yes, yes,
me too. Let's jump into the facts on Desperado. All right, the film
Desperado was released on August 25th, 1995 with an R rating
and a running time of 104 minutes. It was written and directed
by Robert Rodriguez. It stars Antonio Banderas, Salma Hayek, and Joaquín Dalmaida.
On Rotten Tomatoes, it scored 71%. On IMDb, a 7.1,
both respectable scores. It gets a thumbs up from Gene Siskel, but a thumbs
down from Roger Ebert. Let's see, awards. It didn't win
any that I could find, or at least that were kind of worth mentioning,
but it did get nominated for 2 1996 MTV Movie Awards,
which is one that we do pay attention to fairly often. Antonio Banderas
was nominated for Most Desirable Male. He lost to Brad Pitt
in Seven, which I get it.
Total argument. Easy argument to make. Yeah, romantic movies.
See, that's what I'm getting at. Yeah, they're both hotties, whatever. They're handsome,
good-looking, right? So I totally get the idea like, well, is it Pitt or Banderas?
Like in a vacuum, that's a great argument to have, right? But Banderas
in this movie versus Pitt in Seven is mind-blowing.
It's crazy because Banderas is like playing the sexiest version
of Antonio Banderas in this movie. And Brad Pitt is not in Seven.
So, but it gets better because this film was also nominated for Best Kiss,
obviously between Banderas and Salma Hayek. Okay. But the winning kiss
was from the movie Species when Natasha Henstridge pops her tongue back
through the back of the guy's skull. That won Best Kiss that year. So respect
to the voters, honestly. I mean, that's what the MTV Awards are for,
right? Fair, fair. And it was maybe a more impactful kiss. I suppose it was
certainly impactful for the character whose brain was then on the floor.
But at least Best is like, you can translate that however.
Best kiss could be the coolest. So that's fine. But the most desirable
male is very clear. And that's so weird. And so separate.
Those awards at the time also had— they would have most desirable male,
most desirable female, and then best male performance, best female performance, where they
were doing more of the let's reward the acting versus just like,
hey, that's a hottie, right? Kind of thing. Yeah. Hit and Seven. I don't know,
man. That is some wild shit. I also don't know how those— I never like
voted. I don't know if it was like a Teen Choice type thing where people
voted on the MTV Awards. I never did growing up, so I don't know.
I think it might've been a phone vote thing, but— Yeah, where you got a
dollar for the first minute, you know? Right, right. All right,
for this movie, Robert Rodriguez had a budget of $7 million, almost exactly
1,000 times more than what he spent to make El Mariachi, which was
made for just about 7 grand. Wow. And at the box office, it pulled in
$25.4 million, 3.6 times what it cost, a bona fide hit, no denying
it. So those are the facts. Desperado. And Nick, you brought
this to the table, so why don't you kick off? How does this movie open?
What are we looking at? So, so we get a cold open here. Yes,
and we love a cold open. Really good, one of our favorite things.
Um, and we've got, uh, Steve Buscemi's character who walks into this bar,
and it's this very, you know, classic like Wild West,
like dirty, dusty, rough and tumble kind of bar.
And he stomps out his cig and he gets up, and he's, he's very,
um He doesn't belong there. He very clearly doesn't belong there.
And he is not concerned really about what these guys think of him or anything.
Like, he's very confident and stuff. They're kind of put off by him. But he
goes in and starts telling this story and he's, you know, like, I'm actually lucky
to be alive and starts telling this whole story about at this other bar he
was in, in another town, the biggest Mexican I've ever seen walks in.
And, you know, his face is always in the dark and he's very mysterious.
And then just you know, slaughters everyone. He's looking for this guy named
Bucho, and he, and he kills everyone, right? And,
and it's kind of cool as he's telling the story, we get little shots of
him, you know, with these ridiculous guns. The guns that they— that he has
are very nice. It's like there's almost a steampunk element to like how
big that stuff is. There's like a— it looks
like a pistol shotgun with a like— yeah,
the kind of barrel. Yeah, just crazy work. I love—
I love Buscemi's character here, which by By the way, I had to look it
up because I didn't think anyone ever referred to him by name in the movie,
but he's credited as— the character's credited as the name Buscemi, which is
interesting. I'm not really sure if Rodriguez has never named him or what, but like,
but, but that's the character name officially. Um, but he is— he
walks in and he puts his cigarette out on the floor and he stomps it
out for like 30 seconds. Like he's just grinding it into the floor and it's
attracting all this attention because it's like, you know, whatever. And it's— he's so good
at grabbing the entire bar's attention. 'Cause he goes up to the bar and he's
talking to Cheech Marin, who's playing the bartender, who's credited as Short Bartender,
which I'm sure he appreciated. But, you know, so he starts telling
the story. And, you know, initially these guys are like, you know, fuck this gringo.
They're looking at him like, might as well slit this guy's throat. Like, look at
him, right? Whatever. But he starts telling the story and they want to know what
he looks like, right? This guy that he's describing. Well, what did he look like?
What does he— and he's like, did you see his face? Like, no. I saw
his eyes. You know, and it's like really good stuff. And every once in a
while he goes, you know, this place is filled with just the worst pieces of
shit, real world-class turds. And then he looks and goes, Not like
you find gentlemen here. Class actually have in this bar. I did love the world-class
turds. Yeah, world-class turds. That's a great line. That is good shit. Yeah.
And when he's telling the story is basically that El Mariachi comes in,
he kills everyone in the bar, and at the end walks up to the bartender
and he paid and left. And Cheech Marin's like, hey, so the bartender lives,
eh? It's like, not so fast. And then, you know, of course
in the story the bartender gets shot in the head.
Right. Um, really funny. Uh, so yeah,
so we end up with him scaring the shit out of all these people because
he knows that they're, you know, Bucho, this might be one of his controlled
areas, and he's getting the word out and everything. So these guys are fucking spooked
and they're just like, yeah, I'll give you beer, like you can do it for
free if you tell me what he looked like. Exactly. He's like, you know what,
man, I'm out of here. I think he's headed this way. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So really cool way to open the movie. Absolutely. And then we get the,
the, uh, the credits kind role after this, but it's like clear in a moment,
like I'm just gonna jump ahead a second, but he's like on a fishing expedition.
You know, he's there to see, you know, does, is this a Bucho-aligned
bar? How do they react to me saying that name? 'Cause he's right, as soon
as he said that name, that's when everybody turned. That's when everybody went from fuck
this gringo to, oh, we better pay attention to what this guy's saying 'cause this
sounds important, right? And of course, El Mariachi himself is a legend.
It's, you know, he's a bit of a Baba Yaga, boogeyman, John Wick kind of
thing going on. Among the drug cartels in Mexico at the time,
right? That's the idea here. But part of the opening credits then
is our hero, El Mariachi, singing in a mariachi band,
right? And kind of whatever. And I recognized the songs like, ay, ay, ay,
ay, ay, ay, mi amor. And I was like, oh cool, this song.
And I had no idea this song was written by Antonio Banderas
and Los Lobos for this movie. Oh, that's funny. It's called Canción
del Mariachi, and it was written by Banderas as a co-writing credit with Los Lobos.
And it was made for this song. And to me, I thought this was like
a classically historic mariachi tune or something. Not that I'm super familiar
with mariachi music, just to be totally clear, but it's just something that I'd heard
so many times. Yeah, it sounded, I mean, it's very well done. Sounds classic.
It really does. It's a really great song. But in this dream sequence, he's playing,
and then he sees a guy start to mess around with a girl over on
the side of the bar and pull a knife on her. And he basically walks
across the bar, cool as shit. You're talking about being so cool. Guitar solos his
way over to this guy. And that wonderful sort of, you know,
Tejano Mexican and Spanish sort of tinkly guitar sound.
It's so cool. And he just slams the guitar like neck and
head against this guy's face. Everybody cheers. And then I love to— he
gets back to the other two, his little trio, and, uh, he kind of wipes
off the, the head of the guitar. There's so much like very cartoonish bloodletting
in this movie, which is great. Like, it fits the theme and the sort of
style significantly. And again, another thing I think that lines Rodriguez
up with a person who obviously was a close personal friend of his, Quentin Tarantino.
The sort of, you know, the way blood spurts in this every once in a
while made me think immediately of like Kill Bill. Yeah, it was very, very that
style of like the cartoonish bloodletting. Definitely. And, and this bar,
uh, that they're— it's like a dream sequence that they're performing
in— is— does not look anything like the bar that Boucher was
just in, right? This looks almost like a bar that, uh, Dalton would have been
working in for 6 months because it's been cleaned up and there's neon lights and
all this stuff and everything. But after he takes this guy out and they finish
their performance, then we get like what sounds like a slow clap, but it's a
guy like packing his cigarette pack. And he is the least intimidating
looking guy I've ever seen. I mean, I was just like,
this fucking pussy, really? Like, come on. So it's the villain from El
Mariachi, the same actor. And, and it's— you got to think about who the actors
that would have been available to Robert Rodriguez in Texas in 1992 for
7 grand for a whole movie, right? So, but it is the same guy.
What could he put the people— because I think El Mariachi is one of his
friends later on. Uh, Kino are also right from the first So
yeah, but he comes in and he does what— there's a few moves in this
movie that I haven't seen in other things that really just, uh, absolutely tickle me.
I like him striking a match on his henchman's face to light
his cigar really good, or to light his cigarette. Yep. Um, yeah, so what he
ends up doing right before he wakes up from this dream sequence is he shoots
Banderas in the hand, right? He flashes to this guy has killed
his woman basically, and he shoots him in the hand, right? That's sort of the
punishment he, he was able to, you know, like he can't play guitar
anymore because he's being punished by being shot in the hand, not just killed,
kind of thing. So yeah, so, and then, you know, he kind of wakes up.
This has been a dream. He's sort of— because he's remembering back and he wakes
up, and then Buscemi, you know, knocks on the door. And I love the,
you know, the exchange, like, who is it? He's got the gun. It's the only
friend you've got. Which is like good, good, good character work
in one line for Buscemi there. But basically tells him, I've found the right bar.
Yeah, like, this was definitely the right part. They reacted. Buscemi, the way
that he is, it's so much more effective to have him in there than a
guy who maybe seemed more like Texan or someone who like
lived in Mexico. Like, he's so out of place. His voice is so specific.
Like, it's, it's really great to have him in. Absolutely. Yeah, he's great.
Yeah, so, so he's like, you know, walking to the next city.
That— yep. And he's on his way.
We've got Bucho now. We kind of flash over to Bucho, and Bucho's
like the cartel boss type dude. Yeah, yeah. This is Joaquim Dalmeda, the other kind
of— yeah, star, I guess. Yeah, he kind of has like the Ellis from Die
Hard look a little bit, like that kind of beard but not kept
too long, kind of cool guy look. And, uh, another thing that I love
here is you got the bad guys, you gotta have your henchmen practice on each
other in a very rudimentary fighting pit. Yes. So he's got like spikes
and shit all over. He's running like henchman auditions here in
the fighting pit and ends up being like, oh hey, we got
this new kid, you know, he's training against one of our guys. Like, oh,
that guy sucks, put him against our best guy. If you can beat him,
he's in. And then there's just kind of a weird fight scene where he's getting
the absolute shit beaten out of him. Bad. Yeah. He's not
really hitting back at all. He gets his shin broken in a really brutal way.
It looks like— yeah, like a compound crack in half, right? Completely.
And then somehow does a jump kick that kills the other guy,
right? Like with the broken leg. Yeah. Like the broken leg,
you get a little warm up from whipping it. Yeah. It's like a little whip
action. That loose shin that's sort of floating in space becomes
like, you know, the end of a mace. Or, or a, you know, ball and
chain kind of thing. And he smacks him. I don't know if he actually killed
the other guy, but he does say like, well, there goes Costas, or whatever that
guy— Christo, whatever the guy's name was. I feel like anytime somebody has blood come
out of their mouth and then they fall on the ground, that's a dead person
as far as cinema goes. Yeah, that certainly happened to, uh,
who's— we got Rocky IV, we got Menace to Society, we got a lot of
bleeding mouths and dead people. That's true. Um, yeah. Um, and then
as if this movie didn't have enough for me and us and everyone,
we get our first scene of Danny Trejo. Yes. Uh,
he looks cool as shit. I mean, they, they made him— I love
the decision to give him the throwing knives and like the little belt
to hold them and everything. Just looks so cool. But it shows him dialing
a payphone using a knife to dial the buttons. Fucking awesome.
I love that so much. It's good stuff. He looks— I feel
like he looks weird with short hair though. Like almost everything I remember seeing Danny
Trejo in, you know, later in the '90s, when we've seen him in a couple
things already, he's got longer hair. And to me that's like the classic Trejo look,
is sort of at least shoulder length hair. Here he's got a tight haircut,
like it's, it's a tight up kind of haircut, and I'm just like, he doesn't
look as menacing. I mean, he's still Danny Trejo, so he still looks badass as
fuck, like don't get me wrong. Yeah, but it's like there was something about his
hair that I went, that's a little too like Supercuts. It doesn't quite
work for me like as much as a long hair does. Do you think Banderas
had like a clause where he's like, I'm the only cool long hair guy in
this? Maybe, but you know, they could have gotten around that by not letting Trejo
ponytail it, because I really do think that's one of the ways Banderas looks awesome
is when he's got the ponytail going. He's one of the few dudes, the ponytail,
and then some of the hair is kind of falling out of the ponytail,
which by the way, also be the coolest way to do it.
Also the classic look of every girl I had a crush on in middle school
and high school back in the '90s, for sure. Ponytail with that little bit hanging
out. It's so good. This is— this would have been a much more confusing movie
for me to see during puberty, I got to be honest with you. Yeah.
Uh, so we have a couple instances
in this movie because it doesn't say exactly where in Mexico it is, it's just
generally Mex— well, they use, they use a name for the town, but it,
but it's not clear where. Giving like— exactly. As we've discussed
before, what I need is the map with like the illustration of the plane flying
to the place. Um, and there's these random kind of like spring
break college kid seeming people that are in the town,
and it's like the shittiest bar in the world. And they're just like, your service
here is terrible. And she's yelling at Cheech Marin and everything. She's like, and your
beer tastes like piss, as she's walking out. And then we get Cheech and the
other guy saying, that's because we piss in it. That's not all.
It was funny because they did pay, but it almost looked like for a moment
these girls are gonna get shot. Like, you know, like it really was menacing.
It is funny, the boldness of like— everyone is
on eggshells constantly and everyone's so scared of the cartels
except for these entitled-ass kids who are like, uh, I didn't get everything exactly
the way I wanted. The way she starts it is, I used to work in
a bar, so I get it, but it's
like, Jesus, kid. Oh my God. And then we get another couple
people show up in the same bar. We get Quentin Tarantino and a buddy of
his who's missing significant numbers of teeth, um, and they, uh, order some
beers. And you know, it was funny when Buscemi first came in, he said,
can I get a beer? And Cheech is like, all I got is piss-warm chango.
Chango, which is a great fake beer name. You know, it sounds awesome.
Uh, but these guys order the beer as well, and then, and then they each
give— hand over like what look like business cards, like some kind of identifying information.
And, and, uh, the guy who's with Cheech starts making a phone call. So they
get the beers and they both are like, this is disgusting, which is a great
juxtaposition to Buscemi, who very smoothly, very like casually drank his
beer. Yeah. And Tarantino is like, this is fucking— it is funny how they
both take a big gulp and like before swallowing are both looking at each other
like, oh my God, are we really gonna swallow this shit? Yeah. Uh, and then
we get a Tarantino— and this is like the most Tarantino-ish part of
the movie is him himself in it. Yes, because like
his movies are very like snappy dialogue kind of shit, and,
and Rodriguez's style is much more stylized visual.
Yep, kind of stuff, right? Sure. But the Tarantino character is like
a Tarantino character here, and he comes in and it's a great scene in the
movie, honestly. Yeah, I really like this. And I don't— looking at Quentin
Tarantino does not please me. I don't get warm fuzzy feelings
when I see him, but I think he's good in this, and I like the
way he tells the story. So he tells the story joke basically about, you know,
this guy, uh, bets that he can't piss all the way across
the bar into a glass without spilling a drop, and it turns out he pisses
all over the place because he's made this other bet. But I love where he's
telling the story and he's like, and the bartender's laughing, there's piss going all over
the place, hahaha, piss dripping down his face, hahaha.
I, I really enjoy that type of storytelling. Tarantino is a pretty underrated
actor when he's playing this kind of guy. And,
and he does— here's the thing, I feel like he's an underrated actor
when he, when he's in his zone and probably we understand properly what
his range is. His range is very narrow, but when he's playing that guy,
whether it's this character, it's his character from Pulp, you know, Jimmy from Pulp Fiction
is like kind of the same guy when he's playing this guy. He's, I think,
a lot of fun to watch. And I don't like the man himself
has got all kinds of fucking demons and shit that I don't want to get
into. But like as a screen presence, I like him in this. I like him
in From Dusk Till Dawn. I like him in Pulp Fiction. Like when he's on
screen and he's in that narrow range. He's a lot of fun.
He has to be kind of like an annoying guy that nobody wants a little
bit to be there. Yep, absolutely. And that's his wheelhouse. Yeah, he nailed it.
Yeah, so it's great. So he tells this joke
and the guys like it, and then Cheech pulls out a gun and shoots
the guy next to Tarantino. Yeah, like, he didn't check. He's your friend, he didn't
check out. And moves the gun right to his face. He's like, you checked out
just fine, you know? And then Quentin does the thing immediately where he's like Oh,
actually, you know, good, good job. Actually, I, I'm glad you
did that. I just met this guy. It's good to see that your system works.
So you see, like, it's better for me. Meantime, the dude's
brain splatter, right, is on the side of his face. He's kind of like,
oh, okay. So they take him in the back. He's obviously there for a purpose,
and they take him back. And while he's in the back, El Mariachi shows up
to the bar and is carrying his guitar case. Yeah. And that's, of course,
was part, you know, I did notice actually that Uh,
when Buscemi told the story about him at the other bar, he didn't say
guitar case. He said something like a briefcase and put it down, whatever. Right.
And, but it's clear that this is the legend that they're all aware of is
the, is the Mariachi, the man with the guitar case full of guns kind of
thing. Right. So they're, they're pulling guns on him, like whatever.
And finally we got to check your case. We're going to check your case.
So they open it and it's a guitar. At first it looks fine and they're
kind of like, oh, it's just a guitar. It's okay. But then turns out it's
not a guitar. That's sort of a, right. It's like a false guitar that opens
up and it's all this crazy wild shit underneath, you know, just like in the
sort of storytelling sequence. And this is when all
hell breaks loose in this bar. Yes. And we get one of the first
of maybe 3 or 4 like significant gunfight scenes. Actually, I guess the second,
because in Buscemi's story we got— Right, right. But this is like a really concentrated
sort of like gunplay scene now. And we've got double guns, you know, so El
Mariachi is like, of course you can produce them from your sleeve. Yes. You're cool
enough. Very cool. All you got to do is kind of flick your fingers and
the guns pop conveniently right into your hand. And then the dudes
that are sitting in the bar at this table, all of a sudden it's just
all the furniture's flipped and then they all have guns and shot— like, there's not
a single non-henchman in this bar. Correct. And they're all carrying like Uzis with
suppressors on them or something. It's really wild looking guns. Again, big. If you're,
if you're a drug cartel, you'd probably do better financially to
buy a bunch of the same type of gun in bulk. Yeah. And it seems
like they're very— it's like GI Joe where it's just like, yeah, just wear whatever
clothes. You know, even though we're supposed to be an army, like, yeah, just whatever
gun you want. Uh, one thing real quick about the
secret room. Yes. Oh yeah. Oh God. So when they go in the secret room
in the bar, they're walking and looking at like kind of increasingly
gross toilet stalls. Yeah. And then they finally open one and it's
just absolute disgusting, you know, worst toilet in Scotland from
Trainspotting. Just like splatter and disgusting.
And then the secret door is there. Yeah. But it reminds me of, and it
seems like, oh, they probably use real shit there to keep people away, right?
Yeah, in good camouflage. In Breaking Bad,
there's a part where they have to basically smuggle Walter White
in and out of a building without people seeing him, and they're doing it by
putting him in a laundry bin, right? So it's like, get in the laundry bin,
we throw stuff on top of you and bring him inside. And one of the
funniest things is he comes out, uh, when they get inside, and he's like,
does the laundry have to be dirty?
It's like, yeah, for authenticity it does.
And just for authenticity It has to be real doo-doo on the walls. Yeah,
absolutely. This toilet. So yeah, so we're
in our shootout and this shootout is great. Good stuff.
El Mariachi is like, as he shoots, flicking his wrists forward,
which is one of my favorite things. Yeah. As if it's like, this bullet's not
coming out fast enough. I need to also fling it at you. I mean,
if you are pulling a trigger while pushing your hand forward, that is a small
amount more— You're offsetting the recoil too.
There you go. Yeah, yeah. And man, so we get all these great
things. At one point there's a dude who's like ducking behind the
bar and he's under the ceiling fan. Oh yeah, Mariachi shoots the ceiling fan
and it comes down and like just knocks the guy out. But then when he
goes and sees the guy laying on the ground, the fan's still going, just kind
of like slapping him in the face. It's really good. Yeah, and we
get a great like, uh, a moment that actually made me think of— unfortunately,
uh, well, it kind of is like a scene in Die Hard, uh,
when he shoots up through the conference table. Yeah, right. But Mariachi has to like
kick himself back and slide back along the floor to shoot a guy on the—
up on the, uh, uh, bar that's coming at him. That's a really— that's,
I feel like, one of the classic stills from this movie, is him on
his back, the two guns up. Very cool. Yeah. And, uh, he ends up— there's
only kind of one guy left, and they're both, uh, going at each other,
but they're both picking up empty guns. And that's— this is a very creative,
great, uh, sequence, I think, in this movie. That guy came from the back.
He was like in the back dealing with money with Tarantino and the other guy
that's there. Well, when all hell broke loose The other guy who was like Cheech
Marin's right-hand man kills Tarantino because he thinks he's part of what's going on.
Like, hey, how convenient, you know, that this guy shows up right when you do.
Yeah. And the other guy goes out to like see if he can help,
I guess, basically. And yeah, they're like— they both unload what they've got on each
other, never hitting each other, which is something we should mention. Not since Commando have
we seen a movie where a man can just stand in front of a bunch
of oncoming fire. Yeah. And just never get hit. It's really Schwarzenegger
level. It's amazing how he makes those bullets miss. Yeah. But yeah, once they're both
out, they get a moment where they both reach for a pair of guns and
are just at each other's face and click, click, you know, nothing left. And yeah,
they're just like running through the room trying to grab a gun.
So, and my first thought was like, dude, I would've just take the Uzi you're
holding, which probably weighs like 15 pounds or whatever. Just bash the guy in the
face. Like, come on. This is like when you throw your gun at Superman,
you gotta do something. Seriously. I know it was, it was great. Like the way
that they were both reacting to each other and moving so slow. And then finally
El Mariachi was just like, fuck it. And snaps the guy's neck. That's right.
Um, so great scene. He leaves the bar.
There's a sign, uh, on the wall that says members and non-members
only. I love this sign. I saw that too. That was really great. Yes,
my favorite kind of jacket too. Oh yeah. Um,
yeah. Um, so, uh, now we see
Salma Hayek's character, right? She's like across the street. She's just kind of walking down
the street as Mariachi comes out of the bar and is heading down. But then
the guy who, again, was sort of like Chicha's right-hand guy has followed him out,
and he's apparently got a couple of guns on him, and he's kind of following
Mariachi, you know, running down the street. Because I know we notice he passes
Trejo, but Trejo doesn't like react. He's just kind of watching stuff. And as
he gets approached, Mariachi turns around to sort of like knock Salma
Hayek to the ground to get her out of harm's way. Yeah. And it's like
wrestling briefly with the guy, uh, and there's like gunfire, whatever.
And Salma Hayek's okay, but, uh, he took a shot in the shoulder, I think,
right? Yeah, Mariachi takes a shot in the shoulder. But ends up killing the other
guy with his own guns, kind of turns them back on him and pow,
you know, and then— and I think that scene doesn't
even show the guy getting shot. It's a shot of Mariachi kind of on top
of the guy forcing both guns and hits him with both in the head at
the same time. And just the blood hits quite a bit. Yeah, again, cartoonish.
Very, yes, very cartoonish. Um, when it very first
showed Salma Hayek too, she was walking across the street and these two cars crashed
because they were— everyone was staring at her. It's gorgeous. Yeah, yeah, very nice.
Uh, so El Mariachi left a note at the bar, just says, looking for
Bucho M, right? Right. So yeah, they know, uh,
they know he's around. Yes. And so he's— so now Bucho has showed up to
the bar to kind of, you know, survey the damage, and his right-hand man is
there, and, and they're kind of like, you know, oh man, like the
Mariachi's, uh, uh, is, you know, he's basically still telling me it's a myth,
it's a legend, like this is not, you know, he's like, look, he's here,
he knows I'm here, you know, kind of thing. And more tourists come in briefly,
apparently not immediately turning around upon seeing the piles of dead bodies,
right? Or— and the blood all over the floor, you know, all this stuff.
But, you know, he basically tells them to get the fuck out and they do.
And again, another lucky group of tourists who are not just getting killed by
the cartels. People have been killed for much less. Oh my God.
Yeah. So, so Selma and her name's Carolina.
Carolina. Yep. Carolina is doing surgery. Yes.
On El Mariachi, which is Good, you know, next best thing to self-surgery is
having like a hot chick do it for you, right? Especially one who's no medical
experience, whatever, just reading out of a textbook. Yeah, just— and honestly, that's all you
need to do. I mean, doctors act like, oh, it's important that I know all
this stuff by heart. Just get a textbook, you'll be fine. Um,
she uses a cigarette, a lit cigarette, to cauterize the wound,
which seems like the most painful because it went into a bullet hole.
A few things. One, this is where the actual medical training would be
helpful because now that wound is clearly infected. There's no way that that's not a
problem for the wound itself. And then, yeah, the cauterization kind of like needs to
be like on the sewn-up part, or, you know,
or as big as, you know, the heat applied needs to be as big as
the wound so that it all cauterizes. This is really just her seemingly
playing with his wound. Right. I just want to make sure there's ash inside.
Yeah, that's a great idea. And then he goes to sip water or
to take pills and sip water, and she doesn't tell him until after he's brought
it to his mouth that that's hot water. That she was using for the surgery
or whatever. And he, you know, it's like probably like near boiling. Yeah, really hot.
Oh my God. Uh, but she stitched him up, you know, he's, uh,
and he's recovering. Yeah. Um, we're back at the bar and Bucho's
now arrived and he sees the aftermath, all the bodies. And there's one dude who's
just like lifting full bodies and chucking into a pile. And then
another guy doing the least effective mop job I've ever seen in
my life. Well, there's a lot of— mopping doesn't work. Yeah, in general. I mean,
or it's just such a long-term thing. Like, whenever you see it,
it's not satisfying. Like, yeah, you'll see those infomercials where it's
like, you know, some lint roller or cleaner and it gets so clean and it's
so satisfying to watch. Mopping blood is the exact opposite of that. You're just
wiping it around the floor. Well, they didn't have a Shop-Vac. Yeah, they didn't have
Swiffer Wet Jets back then, so they didn't have the little pad to soak it
up. Well, Desperado 3 is going to be brought to us by Swiffer Wet Jet.
So yeah, so they're, uh, well, they're mopping up in there and then actually Trejo
comes in and Bucho arrives. He leaves with his, with his right-hand man, whatever.
And Trejo shows up and kind of just looks at these guys and it's like
playing with one of his knives. And then I think it's like they're basically like,
"Get the fuck outta here." And he doesn't. But then like they look away and
when he looks back, he's gone. It's just sort of like he's just continually showing
up as this sort of specter that's just in town and looking around and
whatever. So now we cut to Bucho's compound, his home,
and this armored limo shows up. And his right-hand man's
so proud of it. He's like, "Bucho, look what I got. It's all set,
exactly what you wanted. It's exactly what you wanted." And he's like super excited.
Um, and he's like, okay, go, fine, take it and go find
the guy that, that, that is doing that, killed all these men. Like, go find
him. Like, you know, any— and he says, in town, you see anybody you don't
recognize, just kill them. Kill them. Just don't— you know everybody in this town,
go kill it. And which, by the way, all those white tourists are in deep
shit now. There's officially green light on those guys. It is funny that it's
almost like unspoken that like, well, we're not fucking with the Americans because maybe that
blows back too hard on us. And they're like, good, that's bringing money into the
crowd. He— if he's then, you know sort of the, uh, you know,
if he's like in, uh, Roadhouse where he's, you know, Brad Wesley,
you know, ringing the town full of the, you know, to get their money for
protection. Well, they got to be having some outside money come into the town,
and that's what your white tourists are for. Like, yeah, these are
your double-deuce, uh, patrons. Maybe it should have been, if you see anybody Mexican you
don't know, yeah, kill them. Maybe that would be more specific. You know, that's what
he really wants. Um, um, so, uh, let's see,
they've got Uh, a couple things real quick.
They were looking, um, El Mariachi and Carolina are kind of— she
looks at his guitar case, right? And oh yeah, they open it up
and they're looking at all the different things. And one thing, yeah, so this
great like codpiece gun with like, you know, total dick and
balls thing, looks great. Um, yep. And, uh,
saved him a couple of times or something like that. Yeah, yeah. So Bucho gets
a call and finds out that his boss— so he's not the boss boss,
right? Yeah, yeah, he's still got people above. They keep referencing that the Colombians
are watching them closely, and so there's obviously this like, you know, they're probably in
charge of the drugs. Yeah, there's some— there, it's— they're a certain level that is
like higher than the street but not, not the supplier. They still— yeah, yeah.
Um, and he gets a call basically saying, we sent someone down here.
Yeah, yeah. He's like, all right, what does this guy look like? Yeah, like,
we're not gonna tell. He's like, I need to know what this motherfucker looks like
so that we don't kill him because I just sent my guys out to kill
everyone. Yeah, right. Yeah. And he's yelling at everyone. He's like, What's the phone number
in my, in my limo? That's right. And no one knows.
He's like, I don't know, it's a new car, boss.
The one guy that like shrugs and kind of smirks, he does it over
and over again. He was like there for the limo delivery. Yes. With a big
mustache. He's hilarious. Like every time he goes, like,
he reminds me of like the plethora guy from, uh, the plethora guy from,
from Three Amigos and also the like right-hand man, not Mexican, but the right-hand man
of, uh, Governor Jay LePétomane in Blazing Saddles.
The Slim Pickens character from Blazing Saddles also just kind of like, I don't know,
like, you know, kind of thing. Yeah, he's good. A little bit of comic relief
because Buccio is not giving us much in terms of comedy. He's very serious.
He's just the most serious man. He's very serious. But before, like,
at one point, so after leaving Carolina's, he asked, hey, can I leave my stuff
here with you for a minute? Mariachi does. I gotta go to church. I gotta
go confess. Gotta go to confession. So he goes in and it's not a priest
in the booth with him, it's Buscemi, right? And he's basically telling him like,
look, dude, you you know, I've looked around some more, like, you know, Bucho's not
the top. If you, if you're going to keep going, you're never going to figure
this out. This is never going to end. You don't want this. You should just
fucking forget it. You got the guys that actually killed her.
Stop it. Yeah, kind of thing. And he's like, no, I told you, Bucho is
it, you know, kind of thing. But it's like his attempt to go, and he
basically says, I'm not, I'm not sticking around with you. Like, I'm done,
you know. Um, so when he goes to leave,
he's then— they're then being followed by Danny Trejo, right? And so,
and this is when we really get to see Trejo sort of
armament. Yes, because he opens up his vest, whatever, he's got this, this almost cummerbund.
Yeah, it is like of like of just so many throwing knives,
like dozens and dozens of throwing knives. And so he starts kind of
attacking Buscemi and Mariachi and kills Buscemi right away, a couple of
throwing knives right after Buscemi says like, oh yeah, I plan on living
a long— that's right, yeah, exactly. And, uh, so, so we've got— this is
interesting too, I found like the kind of care— the actors who I most recognized
in smaller bits all die fairly quickly after being introduced. The Cheech Marin,
Quentin Tarantino, and now Buscemi lasted a little while, but still we're not,
I don't think, halfway through the movie at this point, maybe about that, and he's
dead. So it's like all these sort of like actors you'd recognize outside of Banderas
and Hayek, they're, they're dying pretty quick, you know. So yeah,
um, so, uh, let's see, they are— well,
this is— so these— so the limo— so Trejo, and, uh, he's coming
at them. Yeah, he's coming up. He's been killed. Yep. Mariachi's been hit by a
couple of knives. He's like 3 or 4. That's one of the spurts. He gets
hit in the back and literally blood Oh, shoots over his shoulder.
There's some good squibs in this. This is a squib-heavy film. Uh,
so the bulletproof limo pulls up though, and they, and they just see the
melee, and it's like, all right, well, these have got to be the guys that
we need to kill, right? Because we don't know these motherfuckers. I don't know that
they see who Trejo's attacking because now Mariachi's down the alleyway or whatever. Yeah,
but they just see him. He's a guy we don't recognize, and he's got weapons,
and he's like being aggressive. Yeah, kill him. And so he gets a bunch
of them though with those knives. Oh my God, really? His moves, I mean
A bulletproof limo is no match for throwing knives. Like, when the bulletproof, uh,
sunroof flips open and he just like starts chucking knives down
in there like he's throwing a grenade into a tank. Like,
oh my God, dude, he's so video game. Like, really good.
Yeah, so he takes out a bunch of guys, um, but that he ends up
getting shot and killed by that kid, the kid who broke
his, uh, the broken leg. He's now got a cast kind of on. Yeah,
yeah, yeah. So, um, so he's kind of like one of the top henchmen
or what. Now that all the rest of them are dying. Yeah. Yeah. So,
so he takes out Trejo, which is a big mistake, but they don't know that
yet. Yeah. So let's see, we got a kid.
Yes. In town. That's right. This is kind of the other thing that
we have to care about is there's this kid in town who's playing guitar and
he wants El Mariachi to teach me how to play guitar and all this stuff.
And he says his name is Benito, which, which is important for later.
Okay. Kid's name is Benito apparently. So yeah. And Benito says
you know, like, oh, I want to learn how to play guitar. My dad,
uh, doesn't work. He's kind of talking about his family a little bit, but he
like was a mariachi. He said, yeah, it was a mariachi, but he doesn't like
play anymore. Uh, there's a scene where the kid is— he's trying to take,
uh, El Mariachi. He's like, here, come here, I want to show you something.
Yeah, yeah. And there's a scene where he's walking,
uh, past this wall, and El Mariachi is walking past the wall, but he's bloodied,
and he's kind of leaning against the wall and leaving streaks of blood on the
wall. And I feel like that's one that Robert Rodriguez was very proud of.
It's a cool scene, but it's probably one of those things in his head where
he's I think it'd be cool as
fuck. But yeah, the kid like almost gets hit by a truck and Mariachi saves
him. And then he's like, hey, I gotta go switch out my guitar or like
trade my guitar or something, right? So this car drives up and the kid goes
and brings the guitar to these like real shady looking dudes and they hand
him a different guitar, whatever. And as they pull around the
corner, they see Mariachi there. And again, you said he's all bloody or whatever,
but he does have a gun on him. The dude tries to pull a gun
and he's like, like, you know, no kind of thing, you know what I mean?
It's like, dude, you know, you can drive away, but like, you're not— you know,
don't do that kind of thing. So he does, but he takes the guitar back,
breaks it open, and sure enough, there's a big old bag of cocaine inside or
whatever. And this is— the kid then drops a dime on Carolina because he says
like, what is this? Like, what do you do this? He said, well, because my
dad like doesn't work, he just sits around. So he's like, I do this.
Everybody in town does this, right? Even Carolina, because he mentioned the bookstore.
He was talking about the, the locations and stuff. Exactly. Businesses.
Yeah. And Uh, yeah, so Carolina has a bookstore
cafe place. Yep. Worst set in the entire
movie. They put no effort into it. It is like one wall of books that
don't even look like books that would be for sale at a bookstore. It looks
like a library reference light. Like, I have that in my office around the corner.
And then a single, like, espresso machine off on the side of the counter.
It's not really a cafe, it's just like, I've got an espresso machine. It just—
and whatever. But it feels no different in there than in the dusty
bar. Like, which I think is like, here's, here's the reality of the situation though,
because she tells us a little bit of the backstory. Her parents owned the building,
so she has an apartment upstairs. Her parents are dead and they left her the
building, and she created the bookstore in the building. She did not inherit a
bookstore. Gotcha. So she wanted to make a bookstore in this town, which, you know,
everybody told her was stupid because nobody reads, like, whatever. Yeah, but she like put
all that kind of together herself. So it is a little, you know, so it
makes more sense that it doesn't look like a fresh-off-the-assembly-line Borders.
It was probably like a restaurant or something, whatever, when her parents owned it.
But like, yeah, it's— she turned it into Libros y Café.
Okay, okay, that makes sense. And, and she said,
um, you know, El Mariachi's confronting her,
but like, you're taking money from Bucho, like, what is wrong with you?
And she says— he's like, you're, you're doing good, your business is doing good.
And she's like, no, my business isn't doing good. Bucho pays me $50,000 a year.
I'm glad they're working in USD here.
It's a smart move, makes it easier. The translation would have
been especially hard. The Mexican peso got like recalibrated, I think, at some point in
the '90s. Yeah, yeah, it was right around that time because it was like,
oh, used to be like 5,000 pesos a dollar, and then suddenly it was like
300 or something. It was just a very different thing. But yeah, the new peso.
Yeah. Um, so, uh, so Bucho comes into the bookstore and
she's still kind of dealing with, you know, El Mariachi's up on the
counter, right? Right. Because, well, because he's— she sewed up his face because now he
got new wounds that he has to have fixed. So she's stitching him up and
he's sitting up on the counter, but then Bucho and his guys are right outside.
Yes. So she shoves him off the counter onto the floor, and then to mask
that shoves her cash register
onto the other side of the door to make the noise. Exactly, smart, very smart
move. Yeah, really smart move. And then Buccio for some reason comes in by himself.
Yeah. The henchmen stay outside, but I think it's 'cause he wants a little action
from her too. I think it's one of those things where everybody
knows her, right? So the henchmen don't view her as any kind of threat 'cause
they know her. And it's clear from the way Buccio acts, if they
haven't had relations before, 'cause he kind of hints that they do later too,
They've either been together or he, you know, has gotten closer. I don't
know. There's something there where, like, he's acting like they're very familiar.
Yeah. And, you know, he kisses her and she doesn't really push away. She doesn't
love it. She kind of turns away a little bit, but like, she's not forcing
him away. She's kind of like, this guy's going to do the fuck he wants
to do, you know? And that's probably the deal in the town is he's just
like, he takes whatever. Everything's his. Exactly. But so
they're chatting for a bit. And I love that this was one of my favorite
sort of moments that wasn't a bombastic action scene in the movie
is, is El Mariachi's sitting behind the bar, can't be seen,
but has to be super quiet, right? So as they're talking, while she's
talking, he kind of ejects the clip from his gun,
looks and sees he has no bullets in it, you know, finds the other clip,
like he's in his pocket maybe or whatever, and then has to like very slowly
kind of click it back into place. And she recognizes
what's going on. You can tell there's a recognition on her face that Bucho doesn't
have, where she stops talking, 'cause she's done
talking, she's whatever she's doing, but then she kinda goes, and she starts talking
again, which gives him audio clearance essentially to click the
little clip into place, and then he has to like pull the hammer back and
all this stuff, and it's a really just really great tense moment of him trying
to be prepared without drawing attention to himself, and a gun
at the side, I mean, this is like a.50 caliber pistol he's holding, or not.50
caliber, whatever, the.50, like a Desert Eagle kind of weapon.
It's loud, right? These are heavy metal components that are loud when they
click together, but she keeps, talking more to like cover, give him audio
cover. I thought it was really, really great little moment between the two of them
when they couldn't have really communicated together. She picked up on shit so fast.
Yeah. You know, and it was really great. So he's able to like get his
gun ready and of course doesn't need it. Butcher leaves. But, but it was really
kind of neat, tense little moment where it's like, oh, is he going to get
heard? Is Butcher just going to get up? Is he going to look over at
any point? Like, at no point did he even look over because he sort of
concentrated on Carolina, which, you know, and it was tense because like the
movie to this point has been like all shootouts. Yeah. You know, so why wouldn't
there be another shootout here? Yeah. Um, yeah, really good. Uh,
and, and she, you know, she's smooth there. Bucho and
the crew leave. Um, we get a sex scene between,
uh, El Mariachi and Carolina. There's entirely too many candles
for like how much they're probably moving the walls. And like, I don't know
how structurally sound those shelves are and stuff. It feels like it's
a, you know, it's a problem waiting to happen. But, but it's a good scene
in that— I mean, obviously it's a good scene for lots of reasons. I mean,
Salma Hayek's beautiful, they're both very sexy people, so it's like, it's great that way.
But it also like, it feels tender, it feels warm, between the lighting,
the music they choose, like all this stuff. And so it feels a little bit
very much, uh, like they're connected. This is not— this is not 8 Mile,
right? Reference in the past, right? Um, and then we get the immediate cut,
right? We juxtapose that with Bucho and his girl,
and it's— or is it even— is it even his girl that's in the— I
couldn't quite tell. I couldn't tell if it was like that kind of henchman.
Yeah, exactly. What, some random kind of hooker or something? I don't know.
But whoever he's with, he does not give a shit. He is fully distant.
He's smoking a cigar, blows it in her face, and she like Chokes and coughs.
It's like, holy shit, this couldn't be more different. He was just like catatonically
looking forward. It's like a guy who has $10,000 bet on
a football game and it's in the third quarter and, you know, he's lost like
ages ago and it's just kind of like, what the fuck, dude? His team is
down by 40. And Buccio like blows cigar smoke in his face and
everything. He's gross. But then he kind of has this realization and he's like,
Mariachi's in the fucking bookstore. He calls his right-hand guy and he's
like, he's there. Like, and this was, I thought, weird. And I know why
it had to happen for the movie, but for the character it felt weird.
He says, if she's hiding, if she's hiding
in there, kill them both, make it look like an accident. Why the fuck would
he care if it looks like an accident? I don't think that matters. But then
he says, an accident, it's a bookstore, light it on fire, which it's like,
is gonna make for a really cool scene and also sort of like thrusts the
other characters into situation where they have no, no other choices. So I get
it from like a plot perspective, but in the moment, I don't see why it
would make any sense for Buccio to give a shit that it looks like an
accident. That's a really good point because he— the only authority to him is
whoever's calling him on the phone, right? I mean, the cops— like, there's not a
cop in this whole movie. Like, you don't see any of that stuff. Um,
so yeah, that's a good point. Uh, but they get there and they're outside the
window. So, uh, Carolina is singing.
Yeah. And she has her eyes closed and everything's a very tender scene as
El Mariachi is sitting down there, laying down, and sees the shadows
of these guys outside the window. Yeah. And he slowly pulls his guns out.
So he's got a gun on each guy but doesn't disturb her singing,
you know? And as they're kind of walking behind her, they're both there. So it's
like, well, I can't shoot through her. So he just boots her over and starts—
yeah, starts shooting at these guys. Also, are we to believe— it seems like in
the way the day is going, that this scene with her and the guitar and
the guys approaching the apartment happened kind of right after the sex that
they had. Yeah, he is fully dressed, he's got his boots on, and he's laying
in bed. I just don't— and again, we have to because we
have to about to have him go, you know, he's not gonna get dressed.
Yeah, he's not gonna have time to get dressed if he has to, you know
what I'm saying? So I get it again from a plot perspective, but it's like,
character— was he fucking with the boots on then? Well, we saw them, they were
both completely butt naked. We saw them in the thing, there was, you know,
lots of skin in that scene. So another thing where it's like, there I— I'll
be totally honest, this is where the movie starts to have— I start having problems
with it. One, I 100% agree because I loved it
to this point. Yep. And it was— and it was the very first crack for
me was Bucho saying, make it look like an accident. I was like, why the
fuck does he care? And numerous things we're about to get to, I went,
what, what, what? And it really kind of— this movie to
me a little bit falls apart from this part out, but we'll keep going.
Yeah. But basically, like, it's another great shootout scene. And then she's— I do
love that, you know, she's trying to get her shoes on. First of all,
girl, heels? You don't got any flats you can throw on? You really think— am
I supposed to believe that a woman who lives in a little village in Mexico
doesn't own a pair of fucking, like, sandals? Dirt roads and stuff. It's not like—
yeah, you're not walking around a mall. Yeah, exactly. But she throws on mismatched
pumps, which is pretty cool. They're fighting. They go down the stairs into the— and
to go out through the front door of the bookstore. And of course it's on
fire. So this is one of the reasons we had to have— but of course
Bucho didn't need to say, "Accident." He could have just said, "Kill them both and
light that fucking bookstore on fire." He could have just been aggro about it and
it would have made more sense. Anyway, that happens, so they
have to go back up, and now they're basically up on the roof, which is
like scary because it doesn't seem like— it seems like
there's a lot of distance between these buildings. Yeah. Um, but she
runs and jumps like a fucking track star, taking the heels off, of course,
right? You know, but then him, uh,
what— talk to me about how does this work? It looks like he falls.
So El Mariachi— so, uh, Carolina jumps to the other building because
there's guys who are coming up her— yes, after them, right? They got to do
something She jumps to the other building. He throws the guitar case over there and
it lands. And then he's somehow like tipping
off the building on his tiptoes and it looks like he's about
to fall off. But then he gets enough thrust out of his legs that he
can do like the backwards jump, right? He's shooting at the guys
on the old building with his 2 guns. Yeah. And has enough power
to like land comfortably on the other building. He can barely make
it with 10 feet to spare. Like, he's like the middle of the building,
dude. If we're talking about the hockey game in Clerks, he landed on center ice,
right? Exactly. And, uh, oh my God. Yeah, so I don't, I don't,
I don't get the physics of that at all. Yeah, but it looked cool.
And again, that's one of those things where it's like, oh, it would be cool
if someone did this, you know? And then we get the, the most, uh,
uh, uh, I would call sort of formatted or pre-planned shot
of the entire movie. He takes a couple of grenades out of the guitar case.
There's 2 guys down on the street. He throws the grenades down. As they start
running away, the grenades explode And, and as they're walking,
uh, Carolina and Mariachi are walking along the rooftop, this big explosion happens behind
them, right? And it's a great— I mean, honestly, it's probably the COVID for this
episode. Yeah, because it's a great shot, the flame behind them, and they're walking holding
hands and she's got his jacket on. Fucking classic. Really cool visual. Really fucking
cool. Like you were saying, you know, comparing like Tarantino and Rodriguez, and Rodriguez having
such this visual language in this visual style. This was like, again,
one of the coolest images in a movie full of cool
images. Yeah, for sure. Very, very neat. Um, and,
uh, while they were on the roof, uh, he had a clean shot at
Butcher, right? But you're right. Yeah, right, because she says,
that's Butcher. There he is. There, that's him. Yeah, and he— and he can't— he
sees his face. Yep. And he— then he— and then he doesn't. And he doesn't
tell Carolina why. He doesn't tell us why. Like, the audience is left in the
dark like she is. Yeah, it's fine, that's a choice, but it doesn't make
a lot of sense to this point. Um, it was very strange,
and it was strange that he didn't immediately tell her. It was very,
that to me was a very odd choice. Yeah, that would've seemed pretty relevant.
'Cause she's pissed. She's like, what the fuck? Like, he just blew up my business.
He knows I'm with you, so he's gonna kill me if he gets a chance.
What the fuck, dude? Could you please kill this asshole? Yeah, and it's even like,
if not for your murdered lover and your fucking
guitar hand, how about the shit that just happened
and is happening? Like, I will bang you more. That will justify killing this guy,
right? Right. Get rid of him and we are cool. We can bang as
often as you like. Just get rid of that fucking guy.
Um, so Bujo is fucking pissed, right?
Yes. He's back at his, uh, compound, right? And he's like,
you know, you see someone you don't know, you shoot them. How, how fucking hard
is that? So fucking simple. What you do— and this is all this group of
his guys all standing in front of him— and then he just looks in the
middle to the guy that we like. He's like, hey,
I don't know that man. Who's that? And everyone starts backing away from me.
He's like, oh, Bucho, you know, and he shoots and kills him. So,
you know, he's furious. I love that he has the bulletproof
limo, and as the guys are driving away, he's just taking potshots at
the limo because what the hell, it's bulletproof, there's no harm in that. Even funnier,
we can't skip past this part though. He kills the one dude and then gives
the gun back to his right-hand man. He says, see, see how simple that is?
Yeah. And all of his guys are still kind of milling about, they're kind of
looking at the corpse, and he goes and he looks and he takes the gun
back from him, goes, right Hey, who are these guys? Yes, I don't know these
guys either. I've never seen them either. And they all like dive behind the hay
bales. So funny. So good. Oh my God.
Um, so yeah, so now Buccia— or not Buccia, uh, Carolina and Mariachi are chatting.
Mariachi's still not explaining why he has not killed Buccio, why he chose not to
kill Buccio. But he says, you need to go take all the money that you
have. You said you saved a bunch of money. She's like, yeah, it was in
the fucking books. Which, like, banana stand type situation.
Yeah, but if you're gonna sell the books Why is the money in
the books? It's one thing if it's in the bookstore, but she said they
were hidden in the books. I guess she was so convinced
no one was ever gonna come in to buy books from her bookstore that she
just stashed it there. It's all just hollowed out. It's right there. All the pages
are cut out, you know, kind of thing. My wife actually made me one of
those out of a copy of, oh God, it was Confederacy of Dunces. Nice.
Yeah, so I got one of those, which if you ever come over to my
house, don't grab my copy of Confederacy of Dunces. You get a rock hammer in
there for making your own chess pieces. Exactly.
Pieces. But no, so he's like trying to explain to her like, well, you just
need to go. And she's like, I got nothing. Like, that was it. Like,
I'm fucked. Like, if you don't do this, don't you— you said you had friends.
Can't you call friends? And he's like, campo and campa and kino,
they would tear the town apart. She's like, yeah, okay, I'm fine with that.
Yeah, I'm cool with that. Let's, let's do that. So sure enough, he gets on
the phone, he calls, he calls campa and kino. Yes. And this is
again very cool. And plot-wise,
whatever, I don't care. This looks cool as shit. And, and it introduces us to
some new styles of what weaponry, which is all we're looking for,
right? So yeah, we got the 3 mariachis here.
We got his 2 buddies, Campo and Kina. Campa and Kino. Campa and
Kino. And then El Mariachi like walks up next
to them. So we got the 3 dudes and again, they're being shot at immediately.
Oh yeah. The limo comes up. Yeah. They're getting
blasted at. But if you don't care about the bullets,
act like you don't need the shit and they give you the shit for free.
Act like you're not going to get shot and you will not get shot.
There you go. I don't know which one is Camp and which was Kino.
I didn't, I didn't double go back and double check, but like whichever one's got
the bazooka guitar case, when he gets down into that stance with the leg out
like he's a catcher about to throw down to second base, I love it every
time. He does it every time he shoots that thing. He's gonna get braced,
you know, this sounds so good. Okay, so we had one guy has 2 guitar
cases which just have machine guns that shoot directly out of the guitar
case. So he's holding it by the guitar case handle and every time he'll like
kind of flip it up, the sounds of it cocking and reloading, very satisfying.
The rocket launcher guy, really, really good guy. Really great stuff.
Because he also sort of just, you know, hoists it up and
pulls it down and you hear kachunk, like a loud sound of
like, I guess another bazooka rocket getting placed into place.
Like that doesn't work like that for sure, but still. And he fires like 4
or 5. So many bazooka rockets, like oh my God. And the machine gun guy,
again, he's just kind of waving them around. Oh, very haphazard.
Those handles are not super fixed to the case.
So it's not gonna like directly correlate to how the
case itself is turning. Give there. Yeah, it's bad. And plus, how heavy
is that fucking thing? But I don't care, it's awesome. It was very cool to
see these guys, and we just get these guys for a very short period of
time. Yep. The rocket launcher guy ends up getting hit and shooting his rocket
straight up in the air, right? And then it just comes down, lands on his
face, and while the other guy is walking away
and just kind of gives like a, a very subtle wince of like, oh damn,
my best friend got killed, oh well. And then he gets taken out
Immediately, you know, uh, and the kid got shot. Yes,
the kid caught astray. Little Benito caught astray.
And but now, but Carolina now has stolen one of the trucks that Bucho's
men showed up in, and like they're throwing the kid into it and they're driving
off, uh, uh, you know, whatever, to get him to a hospital. Yeah,
so they do take him to a hospital, and you know, these people start working
on the kid or whatever, and Mariachi leaves because he and Carolina have some
unfinished business to attend to. To. So they go up to Bucho's compound. She knows
where it is, so he says, you know— or no, she actually is like,
I don't think this is it, are you sure this is it? This is definitely
it. Um, again, we don't— we still don't understand the connection. Yeah, we don't know
Mariachi and Bucho, but they go inside, uh, seemingly unarmed,
you know, whatever. And there is Bucho and like what, 10 henchmen? Yeah,
along with his like girl henchman, whatever, he's like lieutenant now.
And because the other right-hand man was killed by— in, in the,
the shootout with— they ran him over with— they ran over the car, which is
pretty go, uh, with the Jeep. So, but now, but he was— and, and they
recognize each other. Bucho and Mariachi recognize each other, and Bucho says,
Benito. So his name is also Benito, which I think
is an interesting choice to have the kid now. His name Benito. Benito and Cesar,
I think. So they start talking to each other like, yeah, they're brothers. Bucho is
Mariachi's older brother Cesar. Um, there's a bunch of sort of like family
squabble and like, Dad this, and like, whatever, you killed a bunch of my men
and Dad wouldn't be proud of you anymore, and da da, all this kind of
stuff. And he basically, Bucho basically is to make this even, I'll call, I'll wipe
the slate clean between us if I just, you just let me kill Carolina.
Yeah. Kill her, I'll kill her in front of you and then we'll be even.
And then so what happens next is definitely
one of the things I have an issue with. Yes. In the movie. Yeah.
He does another one of his really cool, the guns come outta my sleeves
kind of moment. He's got the 2 and he points and bang, bang, bang.
And then we cut to bedside at the hospital and little Benito and Mariachi
is there and Benito wakes up and Benito's Dad shows up and it's a sweet
moment. Yeah, how the fuck did they get out of there? How did they get
out of Bucho's compound? For as much as we've seen in this film, you can't
yada yada the final— yeah, you know, you have to like— because
yeah, that situation— or are we to believe that the henchmen were
just like, oh well, Bucho's dead, I don't work for anyone anymore, so go ahead
and pass? I can't— it seems like he would have had to take everyone out.
I would have liked at least one shot of them leaving the place. It's fine,
you don't have to show the whole shootout. We've had a lot of shooting,
budget limitations, whatever. Walk out of that with a bunch of
like dead bodies and maybe like one guy mopping, you know? Like, I want to
see— I want to see some carnage in the aftermath. Because yeah, that's a good
point, because we don't know like what happened there. And I can't imagine that,
that whoever's left doesn't kill him. And here's the reason: with Bucho dead,
one of them gets to run— comes the guy. Yeah, but you still don't want
this guy hanging out. He's been killing all these people, like whatever. So it's very
strange. It never gets any kind of explanation. I think it was just honestly it
feels very much like a thing where Robert Rodriguez was like, I don't fucking know
how they would get out of there, but I need them to, so we're just
gonna cut to the hospital. So yeah, so that thing is, you know,
how did they survive? But anyway, that's now,
Mariachi leaves, walking down the dirt road, you know,
the sort of deserted highway. He's got the guitar case and Carolina drives up
behind him and is basically like, hey, I got nowhere to be now since
my bookstore got blowed up, and will you wanna hang out? And he's like,
hey, we got a free car. Yeah, we got the car. So he throws the
guitar case, like, yeah, like I'm done. Son. Yeah, gets in the car with her.
I think they kiss, like, whatever, and she drives off, and then they back back
up to go get the guitar case. He goes, just in case. Yeah, one of
the, um, one of the things they repeat between, uh,
Carolina and El Mariachi is he'll say, uh, did I ever
thank you? Yeah. And she'll be like, no. He'll be like, I will. Yeah,
you know, that's right. So, uh, yeah, they come back for the guitar case
and drive off into the sunset. And, um, just that part's fine.
I'm fine with that part. Yeah, that's okay. They really speed up the this
though. Yeah, so, uh, yeah, that is Desperado. And then we just go
straight to the end. So it's like an hour 45, I think, you know,
decent length for the movie. But we could have had a 5-minute
scene of that final battle easily if there was— if there was a real
way to get them out of that compound, we could have seen it. There was
definitely time to spare, you know, like this movie does not suffer from an extra
5 minutes of gunplay, right? It would have been— would have been welcome.
All right, that is Desperado. Nick, you brought this to the table, so let's get
your rating first. Oh man, uh, you know, despite the issues— because
I'm— I agree with you that towards the end,
I mean, kind of like starting with the, the sex scene, which I'm not complaining
about, um, but it did kind of like— it felt, I don't know,
rushed, or just it wasn't as well put together.
And as like just a visual experience of sitting back and letting
something cool wash over you, this movie's very enjoyable. Enjoyable to watch.
It goes fast. There's not a lot that drags. I mean, there's not a ton
I would, I would cut out. There's maybe some stuff I would add, right?
I don't think there's any acting that's noticeably bad. Like, everyone is— everyone's
pretty solid in it. Things, things generally look good. Yeah. Um,
I would recommend watching this, I think, especially to see
kind of the evolution of like, how do we get to John Wick? Yeah,
this is kind of like one of the steps that gets us to this
action star that we have. And like, a lot of these creative sequences that are
happening during the gunfights are inspired by this kind of stuff. And I'm sure
Rodriguez is inspired by all these other people, but it's nice to see like an
evolutionary John Wick a little bit. Yeah, this was a lot of fun,
and I, I think it's— I think it's worth a watch. I'm gonna give Desperado
a 3.5 out of 5. All right, very nice. I would say, just to double
up on the John Wick thing you mentioned, I feel like even if you're just
looking at American films, which the John Wick stuff is obviously clearly inspired by Hong
Kong Hong Kong cinema as well. But if you were just looking at American movies
and you watched Desperado, uh, The Replacement Killers with Chow Yun
Fat, and, uh, Kill Bill, and you watch those three movies and
then John Wick, you would feel a very natural progression of style, I think,
through those first three movies and like the way they're choreographed and the way that
they're stylized, uh, and whatever. And I think it's— and frankly, I am a huge
fan of the John Wick films, so yeah, very much, they're wonderful. Um,
not as big a fan of this film if I'm just being totally honest.
Uh, it was enjoyable. It's an action movie. I can absolutely turn my brain off
for action movies. The problems that I had with it really were,
even in an action movie, um, like for instance in Commando, where the
character should absolutely be getting shot more often than he is and kind of whatever,
I felt like everything was a little more consistent though. The character still acted
like the characters that were, that were set up, you know, like John Matrix does
things that you'd expect him to do based on previous stuff. When Bucho said,
make it look like an accident, that ripped me out of the movie right away.
It really was I was like, excuse me, I beg your finest fucking pardon,
why does he give a shit about looking like an actor? Doesn't make any sense.
And then it's so funny, the things that can pull us out of movies,
you know, that really stick with us. There was that, and then it was like,
you know, the fact that he was dressed completely immediately after the sex scene was
interesting. I mean, not as bad, but you know, all these little things that added
up until you get to the end, which by the way, the whole brother thing
I thought was like, ugh, really? That, that did seem too much
like— and I wonder when this stuff happens, is is it just
an unoriginal generic thing, or is it an homage to all the classic
movies always had the guy end up as his brother? Because you could read it
both ways, sure, but it doesn't make me like it anymore, really. I don't care
that much. And if that's the, the call or whatever, like, I am not personally
familiar enough with the movies that it's sort of like referencing or whatever to really
understand that. And that's on me, that's not on Robert Rodriguez. Uh, in general,
I, I'm kind of on the fence as to whether I'd recommend this. If you're
a big fan of action movies and you haven't seen Desperado, yeah,
See it, it's a good action movie. You know, like I said, Salma Hayek and
Antonio Banderas are both incredibly sexy in this, and a lot of great gunplay,
a lot of good gunfights, you know, good humor from Cheech Marin and
Quentin Tarantino and Steve Buscemi. There's great funny little moments too, but I'm a 2.5
out of 5, okay, uh, on Desperado. It definitely kind of comes just under that
bar of like clearly a recommendation for me. Uh, you said 3.5, right? Yeah,
so 6 out of 10, uh, from the 2 Dads on Desperado.
And let's see, that brings us up to 1996. Oh, you got '96?
I got '96, and I I believe that
that means we're going to go to L.A. Okay. We're going to go to L.A.
And I've got such— it's going to be fun when we talk about it next
week's episode because I have such a connection to this movie that I'll get into
then. But basically, we're going to go to Los Angeles. We're going to meet with
some sort of— what's the word— aspiring
actors trying to make their way through the L.A. dating scene of the
mid-'90s. This movie really launched several careers. Not, not that they
were the first movie movie for these people, but like really kind of put them
on the map as like, maybe these guys are not side characters, right? Or could
be stars. So Jon Favreau and Vince Vaughn both really hit the scene
in this movie. And we're gonna watch 1996's Swingers, uh, which was a lot
of fun. I, I have not seen it in several, several years, probably 10 or
15 years since I've watched it. But this— there was a time this was one
of those movies I would watch like on a monthly basis. Yeah, a while,
uh, in high school and in college. Um,
another depiction of like what thought cool. Oh yeah,
absolutely. Yes, 100%. And this, you know, they got the zoot suits and the wallet
chains and they're doing the beautiful baby this and that, and there's a whole bunch
of misogyny that's not gonna hold up. But I was thinking about it actually this
morning before we came in to do this. I think it's okay because even then
those characters being that way were not meant to be liked. They were
being shown to us as like, these guys are doofuses. Yeah, yeah, these guys are
dipshits. Like the whole movie ends with, you know, well, we'll get into it,
but like, but it'll be interesting to like kind of look at it with the
lens of today and look back at swingers. So that's what we'll watch next week.
Awesome. I can't wait. Very much fun. All right.
That's a wrap. If you like what you heard, please consider heading over to Apple
or Spotify and leaving us a 5-star review. It helps new folks find the show.
Be sure to check out our website at 2dads1movie.com. That's the number 2 and
the number 1. There you can explore the movies we've covered, sign up for our
newsletter, The Rewind, and even get sneak previews of upcoming episodes. Once again,
this has been Desperado, another episode 2 Dads 1 Movie.
I'm Steve. And I'm Nic. Thank you so much for listening, and we'll catch you
next week. Thanks,