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Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay

As Good As It Gets

Sequel to Rodriguez's debut "El Mariachi" gets a big budget, big guns and big stars, but it remains a "b-action flick" at heart. So no overly complex story, but rather cool characters, over the top shootouts and even the dialogue is obviously just aiming to be cool - in which it mostly succeeds! Soundtrack is nicely Mexican flavored and very fitting.

The film opens up as an action film should... with action and the right amount. My expectations became high after the first scene but this time Antonio Banderas made this movie boring. He did not do justice to his character. I always felt as if something was amiss throughout the movie and really there were lots of those things. Definitely there is the typical Mexican cowboy type action but having only that does not solve the purpose of a movie. I hated the lead actor the most followed by the romance or the love at first sight between the two main lead. That scene was nowhere . I mean that scene made me feel very terrible as if something came out of the blue.Well coming to other aspects, the music is okay, the locations are really nice. My final verdict the film loses its charm due to poor script and bad acting.

Robert Rodriguez, what happened to you? You're clearly talented. You have more imagination and creativity than the majority of filmmakers working in Hollywood today. You're not afraid to go ALL OUT with your style to make the movies you want to make without worrying about what the critics would think. And you know how to do a lot of cool stuff with limited budgets. So why do you subject yourself to making garbage kids'movies like Spy Kids and poor imitations of exploitation films like Machete? However, when Rodriguez was good, he WAS good, and Desperado is probably him at his best.The plot of Desperado follows the character of El Mariachi after the events of the first film where he is now going after Bucho, the mob boss of Moco, the mobster who killed the woman he loved, Domino in the first film. Along the way, he comes across a woman named Carolina, a kid playing guitar, an assassin named Navajas, and many more on his quest to end Bucho.From a pure storytelling and scripting point of view, Desperado probably isn't a very good movie. Rodriguez, even in his heyday, has never been a particularly strong writer. He's always been a style over substance guy and this film's script clearly shows. Now I'm not saying the script sucked because the characters lacked depth or there isn't enough meaning and subtext because not every film needs to have those things, but as in it's a little lazy in its construction. For one thing, the character motivation of El Mariachi is really kinda vague and confusing. He wants revenge on the man who was the boss of the guy who killed his love, whom, really can't be held accountable for what happened and probably doesn't even know why someone would go on a vendetta against him like this in the first place. The film also doesn't really make this clear to the audience until the very end so a lot of the time, you'll just be confused as to why he's after him in the first place. It's even one of the FAQ's on this site. So in terms of character motivation, this film is a little weak.There's also some things in the film that just come out of nowhere, with no decent buildup or explanation. Midway through the film, El needs help to fight off Bucho's men so he calls up two friends who both have their own guitar-based weapon which is a really cool scene, but those guys are just randomly introduced into the film with no buildup whatsoever. They were never mentioned beforehand so it just comes across as a bit of a deus ex machina. There's also an incredibly stupid twist at the end of the film where it's revealed that Bucho is actually the Mariachi's brother. Outside of the fact that it's incredibly cliché to have the villain be somehow related to the hero in an action movie, there's also no real purpose to this. It's just a cheap excuse for the Mariachi not to kill Bucho at one point in the film when he has the perfect chance to. It doesn't even add much internal conflict for the characters as he just shoots him at the end anyways without any regret or guilt over doing so. So yeah, it's a pretty dumb twist.But while the film has those flaws, this is an undeniably entertaining movie. Robert Rodriguez may not be a great storyteller, but in terms of action, he's off-the-chart. This film has some really creatively staged, memorable shootouts that are clearly influenced by the works of John Woo, but have a certain exaggerated, almost comic-book-like quality to them and a sense of humor that make them incredibly fun to watch. Nobody in this film just falls down when they get shot, they either get riddled with bullets or they fly across the room while getting shot. There's also a lot of grace and choreography going on here, with Antonio Banderas jumping all-around and shooting people in all sorts of creative ways such as hitting a fan on the ceiling for it to drop on someone or kicking a guy across the room and then UNLOADING his pistols on him. The only thing that disappointed me, was the final confrontation, which was JUST the Mariachi shooting Bucho and then... the end. But overall, the action was pretty sweet.While Rodriguez isn't exactly Shakespeare, he DID manage to write some memorable scenes here. The opening scene has this great, spaghetti western feel to it with Steve Buscemi telling the story of how he came across the Mariachi in a bar in this exaggerated, stylized way with a lot of slow-mo and stylized lighting used for the Mariachi's entrance, it's a really fun way to open the movie. The camera movement is very dynamic throughout, and the action is FLAWLESSLY edited. He even squeezed in some memorable dialogue here and there with Tarantino telling an elaborate pee joke in a cameo midway through the film.The performances are a little uneven here, but Antonio Banderas STEALS the show here as El Mariachi. While Carlos Gallardos did a good job playing an innocent man on the run in the first film, Antonio is easily the more charismatic lead. He's more bada$$, he's funny, he's witty, and he's surprisingly believable in the action scenes. But Selma Hayek is a little bland as Carolina, the love interest for El. She looks nice but she doesn't have much personality beyond that. Joaquim de Almeida is a really generic, 80's/90's action movie villain and that's all there is to him. He's efficient, but not particularly memorable. Steve Buscemi does a good job as El's accomplice and I wish we could've seen more of him.Overall, while Desperado isn't a particularly well-written film, the film makes up for it with an incredible entertainment factor. 7/10

I absolutely loved this movie, and ever since watching it as a young boy, it has become a classic and a must have movie in any collection. Desperado is a film about a former traveling musician who seeks revenge for the murder of his lover, and the maiming of his guitar hand by drug dealer. The main character comes to focus his anger and hate on "El Bucho", a high ranking drug cartel responsible for much of drug trafficking in the community. This is made clear within the first 20 minutes of the movie, which I thought was awesome. The main character, El Mariachi, has already killed the murderer of his lover in the last film, yet he continues to kill drug dealers. I felt like this gave the main character a great opportunity to grow in the film, he was obviously still reeling from the loss of his woman, and the inability to express his love of music by playing guitar because of his hand. I felt that when he got revenge on the murderer he didn't feel the relief he thought he would feel, so he transferred his rage to the next drug dealer, and the next until finally deciding that maybe bringing down the leader of the cartel would finally bring him some peace. I think it was great how he eventually overcame his sorrow through the help of Carolina.