El mariachi

When rival Moco's attempt on his life fails badly, Azul decides to leave his jail cell and claim revenge. Little is known about him as he heads away from the jail but they know his aim as he is carrying a guitar case full of guns and is dressed all in black. At the same time as Azul kills the first of Moco's men, a young mariachi drifts into town looking for steady work in the town's many bars. Unfortunately for him he is carrying a guitar case and is also dressed mostly in black. Already down on his luck in terms of career, the young man suddenly finds himself with a case of mistaken identity and is the target of Moco's armed gangs.

Unashamedly low-budget, Robert Rodriguez's debut feature film is a great example of how to produce a winning low budget film. The plot is a simple case of mistaken identity that is played out with a good pace and action that lacks multi-million explosions but still has enough about it to be exciting and engaging. The writing is not the best, but then that is not what made this film so famous, no what did was Rodriguez's unique style as director. He takes the simple story and injects it with humour and energy that make it much better than the budget or the written script would have suggested. He borrows heavily from others (Sam Rami is one of the more obvious) but it doesn't feel like he has stolen anything, just used it to do his own thing.

The cast aren't that great though, and the method of dubbing everything is pretty evident in most scenes (but not too bad for me personally because I was reading the subtitles anyway). Gallardo is solid lead but lacks his own style and charisma and it is obvious throughout that the visual style and comic air to the film is carrying him. Gomez is OK but not pretty or a presence enough to do it for me I'm afraid. Marquardt is a bit too hammy and lacking in teeth for the main villain, but Martinez's Azul is a big man and fits the bill well.

Overall this is an energetic film that works well despite the limitations of the budget and cast. You do have to forgive it some things but it is easily quite fun and flows forward well and is certainly worth a look and infinity better than the big-budget excesses of its second sequel – Once Upon A Time In Mexico.

What could easily be viewed as just a simple B-movie turns into an impressive, gritty and action-packed independent feature from director Robert Rodriguez. It's the volatile, gripping story of a wandering guitarist who arrives in a small Mexican town looking for a big break, but unfortunately a case of mistaken identity makes him the target of the town's cold-blooded boss and his vile henchmen who are bent on killing him. Shot for a remarkable $7,000, and featuring a cast of newcomers and generally unknowns, this formidable little feature still packs a punch with violent, pumped-up action scenes and credible performances. Nothing ever truly breathtaking, but a respectable showing nonetheless. ***

Let's give credit where credit is due. Although this picture had an extremely low-budget, it goes to prove that a nice film can still be produced if the director has the imagination and talent to pull it off. And let's face it, the sad fact is that there are all too many movies being made today that cost much more than this particular film ($7000) but fail to deliver the same level of satisfaction. The director (Robert Rodriguez) deserves every attribute due to him. The humor was good and there were some social commentaries that I think some people might have missed. That is not to say, however, that this film was necessarily perfect. It wasn't. The acting wasn't great by any means. Neither was the script. But then, the movie was originally produced in Spanish and the version I saw was dubbed in English, so it is possible that some of the dialogue may have been lost in translation. The ending though, was unexpected and abrupt and I didn't quite like it. As far as the characters are concerned, I thought Reinol Martinez (playing the part of the gangster "Azul") did the best. Consuelo Gomez ("Domino") was attractive and put in a fair performance as well. Carlos Gallardo ("El Mariachi") was average at best. The rest of the cast were pretty much forgettable. Having said all of this, the fact that this film was produced with a low budget doesn't mean that a person should lower his standards and give it a higher score than it deserves when it comes to evaluating it. This wasn't "Gone with the Wind" so there's no need to give it an equivalent rating. The bottom line is that it was an enjoyable low-budget film and it made a hefty profit. No need to argue with that.

I have loved some of Robert Rodriguez's later works like Sin City, so I was pretty excited to see this movie.

The movie is extremely small budget and it really feels like it is more expensive than that. I mean, Robert Rodriguez makes this movie look like it had much more money spent on it, and that is because of his creativity and resourcefulness.

The directing is really good. I loved many of the shots and scenes in this movie and the way they are edited.

My problem with the film or at least my dilemma is... I just find this movie OK. The main actor and character itself is pretty lousy, the movie is too long for its own good, and the story is just OK.

Many people argue that this might be justified because of the low budget. But I do believe that all of the story problems don't have anything to do with the budget. It is not as if I don't like low-budget films, I LOVE "The Evil Dead" and other low-budget films. I just find this movie uneventful, and sometimes boring.

I think this film is the kind of film you should only watch once and move on with your life. I do recommend you to watch it though.

Having experienced director Robert Rodriguez's most recent film, the zombie horror pastiche Planet Terror (2007) - which was sold as a double bill with Quentin Tarantino's femme-exploitation revisionist film Death Proof (2007) as a modern-day homage to low-budget 70's drive-in cinema - I couldn't help but feel somewhat disappointed by its obvious disregard of the low-budget format in favour of CGI, explosions and A-list cameos. Now, although Planet Terror was hardly a big budget affair, it was clearly the work of an experienced filmmaker with his own studio and facilities and a collection of superstar friends willing to turn up and do a couple of days work at a reduced fee. However, with this, his first film, Rodriguez creates a perfect example of the grindhouse ethos in a more contemporary sense; i.e. a violent, low-budget exploitation picture with a minuscule cast of mostly no professional actors and with almost every single technical role carried out by the director himself.

Unlike Planet Terror - which is a good film and one that I did enjoy - the final result here is lively and inventive, with none of the generic clichés and nodding irony of that more recent project. It not only shows the efforts of low-budget film-making at its best, but uses the same shortcomings of low-budget film-making to its advantage. In this respect, it reminds me of something that Roger Corman might have produced in the 1970's, with the exploitative reliance on violence and the corruption of innocence as its central theme, and the excitement and imagination that permeates the direction of Rodriguez from the first frame to the last. The film can obviously be approached as a minor-key riff on the very noir-like notions of mistaken identity, small-town corruption and the vision of the mysterious gunslinger, with Rodriguez creating his own blend of "Mexploitation" cinema that would continue with the bigger-budgeted sequel/re-make Desperado (1995) and the third instalment, Once Upon a Time in Mexico (2003), which just might be the director's best film (or at least, the most entertaining). You can also see certain parallels with a film like From Dusk till Dawn (1996) and the proposed Machete (2008), though really; these films come nowhere near the verve, grit and vitality of the film in question.

If you can get past the technical limitations, the use of the Spanish language and the reliance on non-professional actors, then El Mariachi (1992) is a great film. Not a masterpiece, but simply a great film; one that offers entertainment value and some genuine no-budget ingenuity and - if watched with the added bonus of the director's commentary function - an effective, makeshift film school. I suppose you could always disagree that the film is more successful as a result of the low-budget, as I guess there are some elements here that audiences might see as shoddy or indeed comical due to the lack of funds and experience. Nonetheless, the film really does use these limitations to further the story and the occasional moments of light comedy, not to mention the creation of those enigmatic dream-sequences, which Rodriguez claims were shot simply to use up the last few feet of film on each reel. It all works though, creating a film that is wild, violent, funny, charming and above all else, unpredictable.