3 out of 5

Director: Ethan Maniquis, Robert Rodriguez

I was a bit tired when viewing this, so Im sure my take is influenced by sleepy sleeps, but… I was surprised at the amount of story in Machete, which actually diluted my excitement while watching. Machete, as per the trailers and the first five minutes of the film, is about Federale Machete trying to track down dirty drug dealers who off his wife and kid. …Except that after exactly what youve been promised (chicks, blood, action, graininess), the movie settles down into a more realistic tale about border politics and an underground network for illegals. Machetes character isnt fleshed out, but is given more weight as a human being. And while each new actor (Fahey! Chong!) is exciting to see, besides the flash moments you already saw from teasers, they also get smoothed out into real portions of the film. Overall, then, Machete is best if you go into it without expectations. Foolishly, I was expecting the outlandishness to take over most of the movie. While it does pop up at key moments, it is not present for the whole film, which ends up making it smarter than I was prepared for, and the balance between the politics and poppy action is either poorly done (because I was bored) or smartly done (because it was unexpected). Also: either due to the co-direction or something, this didnt feel as smooth as regular Rodriguez. But again: I was tired.