TV Times

TV Times

‘Desperado II’: The Return of El Mariachi

Sexy Salma Hayek

By Harinda Vidanage
The saga of the mythic guitar-slinging gun trotting hero, El Mariachi (Antonio Banderas), continues in Robert Rodriguez’s bravura action epic Once Upon a Time in Mexico. The movie is more than just the third segment of the El Mariachi story,” Rodriguez explained. But no where does the title say “Desperado II”

In 1993 El Mariachi went on to win the coveted Audience Award for best dramatic film at the Sundance Film Festival, and was honored at the Berlin, Munich, Edinburgh, Deauville and Yubari (Japan) festivals. El Mariachi became the lowest budgeted movie ever released by a major studio and the first American film released in Spanish.

In the newest chapter the desperado returns with his two trusted sidekicks Lorenzo (Enrique Iglesias) and Fideo (Marco Leonardi). And the legend of El Mariachi reaches new heights of excitement and adventure as action and explosion follows their trail.

According to Rodriguez, the true story is that Quentin Tarantino showed up on the set of Desperado back in 1995 and has said ‘This is your ‘Dollars’ trilogy.’ And I said, ‘What are you talking about?’

” The cinephile Tarantino was referring to the Italian director Sergio Leone’s trio of westerns – A Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More and The Good, the Bad and The Ugly, also known as the ‘Man With No Name’ trilogy, since the hero in all three films, played by Clint Eastwood, is never identified by name. “’Mariachi is your Fistful of Dollars, Tarantino said, and Desperado will be your For a Few Dollars More. But then you’ll have to make the epic. And you’ll have to call it Once Upon a Time in Mexico.’”

Rodriguez had got some sense going and he never titled the new movie as Desperado II but stuck to a thematic identification taking in Tarantino’s advice. The story line is simple.

The new adventure is set against a backdrop of revolution, greed and revenge. Haunted and scarred by tragedy, El Mariachi (Banderas) has retreated into a life of isolation. He is forced out of hiding when Sands (Johnny Depp), a corrupt CIA agent, recruits the reclusive hero to sabotage an assassination plot against the president of Mexico, which has been conceived by the evil cartel kingpin Barrillo (Willem Dafoe).

But the cast and the action are very significant. With the introduction of Depp everything seems to be very interesting as he supplies the missing elements. As in “Pirates of the Caribbean,” a massive summer hit for which he deserves a lot of the credit, the actor floats through the action, the ghost of a grin playing on his deceptively angelic and boyish features, muttering salty zingers with such offhand grace that he often seems to be commenting on the movie as well as on the action.

Enrique Iglesias is the world-renowned musical performer who is making his feature film debut with Once Upon a Time in Mexico. Since the 1996 debut of his first album, the self-titled “Enrique Iglesias,” which sold more than 6 million copies, earned a Grammy and made him an international superstar, Iglesias has sold more than 35 million albums and sold out hundreds of concerts.

While Antonio Banderas was made a super star with his performance in Desperado in 1995 has pledged that he will even book a ticket to hell with Rodriguez. The sexy Salma Hayek returns to add the girl power and so does Eva Mendes who has a short but impressive Hollywood record.

Rodriguez is seen as the one man army when it comes to film production in Hollywood and the person behind establishing new brand of Latino flavour in U.S. movies and the huge success which he had behind the completion of the Spy Kids series has made him a force to be reckoned in movie making industry.

Back to TV Times