‘Machete’ is a Bloody mess (how will I go on)

If you think there’s nothing new to add to the immigration debate, you have not seen “Machete.” I don’t think Robert Rodriguez’s movie advances the dialogue very much (in fact, it probably moves it back a peg or two), but it does have something to add – the naked bodies of Jessica Alba and Lindsay Lohan, and the virtually nude figure of Michelle Rodriguez. And it does raise some interesting questions. Danny Trejo plays the long-haired, craggy-faced titular Machete with a combination of swift ferocity and baleful kindliness. And the ladies love it.

Rodriguez has complied, maintaining a fair amount of the wicked humor and every bit of the savage bloodshed the trailer promised. How long is the gastrointestinal tract, and what are its possible uses in a gunfight? And the situation calls for it a lot in Robert Rodriguez ‘s entertaining and blood-spattered action comedy. So he dusted off an unproduced script he’d written in 1993, after he’d first cast Danny Trejo in “Desperado.” Then, recycling footage from the fake trailer, casting Trejo in the lead and adding star power with a surprisingly potent cast that includes Robert De Niro , Jessica Alba , Steven Seagal , Michelle Rodriguez , Don Johnson and Lindsay Lohan , Rodriguez gradually built a “Machete” that 20th Century Fox elected to release as a late-summer theatrical feature. The number of heads, roughly, Danny Trejo severs (and he severs them roughly) as the title character in “Machete.” He plays an ex-federale now caught up in a conspiracy involving a Mexican drug lord (Steven Seagal), a border vigilante (Don Johnson) and a racist Texas politician (Robert De Niro).

They’ll most definitely be on board with “Machete,” which gives ex-prison inmate Trejo his first lead role in a long career of mostly smallish parts as taciturn tough guys who choose their words carefully. When Warner Bros. was prepping Kevin Costner ‘s “Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves” for its 1991 theatrical release, a trailer was released months in advance to whet audiences’ appetites. The trailer featured a cutting-edge, digital arrow-cam shot that followed an arrow from the archer’s bow as it zipped through the forest and thudded into the trunk of a tree. The shot was not originally included in the film. The result is inconsistent but amusing. And Trejo is a welcome variation on the slick action hero – a cunning, ragged survivor who prefers blades but gets very creative with guns, gardening tools and kitchen utensils when other weapons are scarce.

On the other hand, there are jokes that kill, pardon the pun. And Seagal’s performance during his ultimate showdown with Machete is as almost funny as his hairpiece.