Machete (also known as Robert Rodriguez's Machete) is a 2010 American exploitation black comedy action film directed by Robert Rodriguez and Ethan Maniquis. The film is an expansion of a fake trailer published as a part of the promotion of Rodriguez's and Quentin Tarantino's 2007 Grindhouse double-feature; Machete continues the B movie and exploitation style of Grindhouse. The story sees the eponymous character who, after being hired to assassinate a corrupt senator only to be double-crossed, goes on a vengeful quest against the conspirators.
The film stars Danny Trejo as Machete, reprising the role from the fake trailer. Trejo also previously portrayed an alternate version of the character in the Spy Kids films. The film additionally co-stars Steven Seagal, Michelle Rodriguez, Jessica Alba, Lindsay Lohan, Cheech Marin, Don Johnson and Robert De Niro.
It is Trejo's first lead role as the titular character, and Seagal's first theatrically released film since 2002's Half Past Dead (and his last theatrically released film to date). Machete was released in the United States by 20th Century Fox on September 3, 2010. A sequel, Machete Kills, solely directed by Rodriguez, was released on October 11, 2013.
Plot In Mexico, Machete Cortez, a Mexican Federal and his younger partner are on a mission to rescue a kidnapped girl. During the operation, his partner is killed, the kidnapped girl stabs him in the leg before she is killed, and Machete is betrayed by his corrupt Chief to the powerful drug lord and former Federal, Rogelio Torrez, who kills the girl, brings in Machete's wife to kill her in front of him, and implies that he will kill Machete's daughter before leaving him for dead.
Three years later, a down-and-out Machete roams Texas, scraping by on yard work. Michael Booth, a local businessman and spin doctor, explains to Machete that corrupt Texas State Senator John McLaughlin is deporting hundreds of illegal immigrants, which would reduce the number of laborers. To stop this, Booth offers Machete $150,000 to kill McLaughlin. Machete accepts the murder contract after Booth threatens to kill him if he does not.
Machete trains a rifle on McLaughlin from a rooftop during a rally, but before he fires, he sees one of Booth's henchmen aiming at him. The henchman shoots Machete in the shoulder, and shoots McLaughlin in the leg. It is revealed that Booth orchestrated the attempted assassination as part of a false flag operation to gain public support for McLaughlin's secure border campaign. By setting up Machete as the gunman, the conspirators appear that an outlaw Mexican immigrant has tried to assassinate the senator, who is known for his tough stance on illegal immigration.
An injured Machete escapes capture by Booth and is taken to a hospital to be treated for wounds, escaping again from Booth's henchmen at the hospital. Agent Sartana Rivera, a persistent U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent, is sent by her superior to capture the injured Machete. Machete, with the help of Luz, aka Shé, the leader of an illegal immigrant aid movement known as the Network, recruits Padre, his "holy" brother. For revenge on Booth, Machete kidnaps Booth's wife June and his daughter April, after "starring" in an amateur adult film with them. He also collects evidence from Booth's house linking McLaughlin and Torrez in a major drug trafficking deal.
After encountering Machete, Sartana begins to develop an interest in him. Elsewhere, Booth, who is revealed to be working for Torrez, hires a hitman, Osiris Amanpour, to assist in the hunt for Machete. A group of border vigilantes sponsored by McLaughlin and led by Von Jackson begin attacking anyone who may be harboring Machete, and they shoot Luz in the right eye.
Booth and Osiris lead a raid on the church. Padre kills their henchmen before the two incapacitate him and kill him by nailing him to a cross, but do not find Booth's wife and daughter. Unbeknownst to Booth, the church has cameras. Through the CCTV recordings, the news of McLaughlin's corruption and faked assassination is eventually aired on national television. Infuriated, McLaughlin kills Booth and heads back to join Torrez and Jackson to kill Machete. In order to eliminate the people who double-crossed him, Machete gathers the Mexican Network and leads them to the base of the border vigilantes. When McLaughlin arrives at the base, Jackson turns on him for being involved with the Mexican drug trade and attempts to execute him, but is interrupted when Machete and the illegals arrive.
During this confrontation, the Mexican illegals triumph over the border vigilantes. Jackson tries to escape, but Luz, who survived and now sports an eye patch, shoots him in the back of the head. Machete fights Torrez and stabs him, who then scornfully kills himself through Seppuku. April shows up wearing a nun's habit after escaping from the church and shoots McLaughlin after figuring out that he has killed her father.
Injured, McLaughlin manages to escape, but he is killed by the last remnants of his own border vigilante group, who mistake him for a Mexican. Machete meets with Sartana, who gives him a green card, but he rejects it, saying that he is already a legend. They kiss and ride off into the night.
Cast Danny Trejo as Isador "Machete" Cortez, "a legendary ex-Federale with a deadly attitude and the skills to match" Steven Seagal as Rogelio Torrez, a drug lord, as well as Machete's former partner with the Federales Michelle Rodriguez as Luz / Shé, "a taco-truck lady with a revolutionary heart" Jeff Fahey as Michael Booth, "a ruthless businessman with an endless payroll of killers" Cheech Marin as Padre Benicio Del Toro, Machete's brother, "a priest who's good with blessings, but better with guns" Lindsay Lohan as April Booth, "a socialite with a penchant for guns" and "a nun with a gun" Don Johnson as Von Jackson, "a twisted border vigilante leading a small army." The character was originally known as "Lt. Stillman" and was meant to be Sartana's superior Jessica Alba as Sartana Rivera, "a beautiful immigrations officer torn between enforcing the law and doing what is popular in the eyes of her familia". Alba also portrays Sartana's twin sister, Marissa in deleted scenes Robert De Niro as Senator John McLaughlin, a politician campaigning to incite hatred against illegal immigrants Shea Whigham as Sniper, Booth's right-hand man and bodyguard Daryl Sabara as Julio Junito Gilbert Trejo as Jorge Ara Celi as Reporter Tom Savini as Osiris Amanpour, a hitman hired by Booth to kill Machete Billy Blair as Billy, Von Jackson's henchman Felix Sabates as Doctor Felix Electra and Elise Avellan as Nurses Mona and Lisa Mayra J. Leal as Naked Girl Juan Gabriel Pareja as Rico Alicia Marek as June Booth, the socialite wife of Michael Booth and April's mother Tito Larriva as Culebra Cruzado Cheryl "Chin" Cunningham as Torrez's henchwoman Nimród Antal as Booth's bodyguard #1 James Parks reprises his role as Edgar McGraw from the From Dusk till Dawn franchise, Kill Bill: Volume 1 and 2, and Grindhouse segment Death Proof in an uncredited cameo appearance.
Production Development According to Robert Rodriguez, the origins of the film go back to Desperado (1995). He says, "When I met Danny, I said, 'This guy should be like the Mexican Jean-Claude Van Damme or Charles Bronson, putting out a movie every year and his name should be Machete.' So I decided to do that way back when, never got around to it until finally now. So now, of course, I want to keep going and do a feature." Rodriguez stated, "There weren't any action movies that with a Latin flavor that could play to a broad audience. When I watched [director] John Woo's movies, they made me want to be Asian. Woo and [actor] Chow Yun-Fat's Hard Boiled and The Killer really inspired me to make films that would create that feeling in the Latin arena."
In an interview with Rolling Stone magazine, Rodriguez said that he wrote the screenplay in 1993 when he cast Trejo in Desperado. "So I wrote him this idea of a federale from Mexico who gets hired to do hatchet jobs in the U.S. I had heard sometimes FBI or DEA have a really tough job that they don't want to get their own agents killed on, they'll hire an agent from Mexico to come do the job for $25,000. I thought, 'That's Machete. He would come and do a really dangerous job for a lot of money to him but for everyone else over here it's peanuts'. But I never got around to making it."
Instead, during the filming of Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino's Grindhouse (2007), Rodriguez shot lobby cards and sequences from parts of the original script in 2006 for a fake trailer featuring Trejo, Cheech Marin and Jeff Fahey. At South by Southwest in March 2007, Rodriguez announced that he would be expanding his trailer for Machete into a feature-length film. He announced that it would be a bonus feature on the Planet Terror DVD, but the film became a theatrical release.
During the 2008 San Diego Comic-Con, he took the time to speak about Machete, including such topics as the film's status, possible sequels, and production priorities. It was also revealed that he has regularly pulled sequences from it for his other productions including Once Upon a Time in Mexico (2003).
Direction Rodriguez had always planned to be the head-director of the film because he usually used his "one-man crew" technique. In April 2009, it was announced that Ethan Maniquis, who is a long-time editor of Rodriguez's films, would be co-directing the film with Rodriguez.
At the 2010 San Diego Comic-Con, Trejo commented on Rodriguez: "He's a genius. He's an absolute genius. He makes movie-making fun. You know, he makes you wanna go to work. A lot of people wake up saying 'I woke up before my alarm went off' just 'cause you're excited to work with him. You wonder 'what is he going to come up with today?', because every day, he's like inventing something new. So it's awesome to work with somebody like that". "Robert has an incredible vision and is very precise, and [working on his films] you feel like you're in the middle of something both big and experiential. And that anything is possible," states Jeff Fahey, who has collaborated with Rodriguez on Machete and Grindhouse.
Casting The film's lead role had always been intended for Trejo, as Rodriguez mentioned. "Nobody really knew about Desperado, yet the local townspeople would flock to see Danny, thinking he was the star of the movie, even though his part was very small," Rodriguez remembers. "He has incredible presence, and I knew I had found Machete. So, I handed him a knife, and told him to start practicing."
Trejo, Marin and Fahey were announced to be reprising their characters in the trailer for the film. Tito Larriva did not reprise his primary role as the sniper who shoots Machete and was replaced by Shea Whigham. Michelle Rodriguez was the first actress to be cast in the film who was not in the original trailer.
Chris Cooper was approached for the role of Senator McLaughlin. After Cooper turned down the role, Robert De Niro was cast. "From the moment you get Robert De Niro in your movie, all the other actors come running," says Rodriguez on De Niro's involvement in the film. "What I liked about the character was that it was a fun thing to do in a sense of irony and it's not taken seriously. He's not taken seriously on one level so that frees you to have fun without being weighted down by some requirements," says De Niro on playing his character.