Welcome to Mike's Midnight Movie Reviews. This is the inaugural edition and the movie I saw tonight was DESPERADO. (I'll let you decide if there's augury in that.)

DESPERADO is the second feature from Robert Rodriguez, the wunderkind behind EL MARIACHI. That was the one Rodriguez shot in Mexico with a borrowed Bolex 16mm camera and a hand held tape recorder for $7,000. He managed to sell it to Columbia/Tri-Star Home Video and those folks put over $1 million into post-production for distribution. Bang! Rodriguez became a star.

EL MARIACHI centers on a case of mistaken identity -- no pun intended. The mariachi of the title is wandering about town with his guitar, looking for work, at the same time a killer is wandering around town with a guitar case full of weapons, looking for a mob boss who did him wrong. Lots of bad things happen and at the end of the movie, the mariachi ends up with his true love dead and his hand shot through so he can never play again. He also ends up in possession of the guitar case of weapons.

DESPERADO is the sequel to EL MARIACHI. It's been some time since the atrocities were committed upon the mariachi and the mariachi has used this time to make sure everyone connected with committing them has been killed. And here is my first problem with the movie -- all the bad guys were dead at the end of EL MARIACHI! But ok, we can't have a sequel without more bad guys. Thus it appears the mariachi has decided to go after the bosses of the bad boss who ruined his life.

Anyway, the mariachi (played by Antonio Banderas) is nearing the end of his highway of vengeance. He has one more bad boss to ice and he's through. Bloodbaths ensue and a new romantic interest is tossed in his lap. That's more or less what this movie is about.

And it's good. The action scenes are always tempered with Rodriguez's humor. There's play with running out of ammo, multiple targets and of course, the old rocket launcher in the guitar case gag. When it wants to be serious it needs nothing more than Antonio Banderas's scowling visage to evoke the torment of the mariachi's world. Which is not to say that the movie relies on that. It is beautifully shot and edited -- smoother, naturally, than EL MARIACHI, but paced just as quickly. (And you know, I don't think they had to do much editing to make a trailer out for this film the film is cut almost like a trailer.) I laughed, I bit my nails, I left the theatre with a headache, but otherwise satisfied. DESPERADO is a worthy succesor to EL MARIACHI.

Closing notes: Steve Buscemi plays Buscemi (wow! what a coincidence), the mariachi's advance scout -- he's fantastic. Quentin Tarantino also sticks his face in this picture, serving next no purpose whatsoever. The woman who plays the love interest is (literally) car-crash gorgeous -- an improvement over the mariachi's first love -- and extremely capable in her role. The lad who played the original mariachi returns as the mariachi's friend (who totes a pair of machine guns in his guitar cases).

And, oh, watch out, DESPERADO does employ a millennia old plot device which makes for the worst drama of the movie and, unfortunately, its resolution. Not a must see, but a fun see.

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