Once Upon a Time in Mexico
March 2004 Reviewed by: Doug Schneider Format: DVD	(all ratings out of 5): Overall Enjoyment Picture Quality Packaged Extras Sound Quality

Just 35 years old, writer-director Robert Rodriguez has more to brag about than many filmmakers twice his age. In 1992, he released the critically praised El Mariachi, a violent action movie made for $7000. In 1995, with a bigger budget under his belt, he made Desperado, a sequel to El Mariachi. Starring Antonio Banderas and Salma Hayek, Desperado cost a reported $7 million but made a reported $25 million at the box office. Not bad for a guy still in his 20s.

Once Upon a Time in Mexico, released in 2003, is the closing chapter in the El Mariachi trilogy. Rodriguez won’t break box-office records with this film, nor will he be praised for making a movie for the price of a used car, but he’ll be recognized for the movie’s technical achievement: Mexico was shot using high-definition digital video, and is the first movie I’ve seen that signals that film may soon go the way of the LP.

The cast includes Willem Dafoe, Eva Mendes, Mickey Rourke, and Rubén Blades. Antonio Banderas and Salma Hayek reprise their roles as El Mariachi and Carolina, but it’s Johnny Depp who steals the show. Depp’s Agent Sands is a strange but awkwardly likable psychopath whose purpose is to keep "balance" in Mexico. For example, he frequents every small restaurant he can and orders the same pork dish, which he loves. But if he likes it too much he has to kill the chef, reasoning that something so inexpensive and readily available has no right to be so good. A balance must be maintained.

But while Mexico has plenty of similar moments of inspired lunacy, along with a wealth of action scenes that range from the eye-opening to the awe-inspiring, this would-be-epic finale of the trilogy has plenty of pitfalls. Mexico begins with much promise but spirals into mayhem at about the three-quarter mark, when too many characters and way too much action obscure the story. Despite the splendor of Rodriguez’s visuals, when I saw this film in the theater, I was actually itching to leave.

Once Upon a Time in Mexico is only an average film and the weakest of the trilogy, but the technical achievement behind this overly ambitious mess makes it stand out.

If you didn’t know that Mexico was shot using digital video, you’d never be able to guess that it was -- a stark contrast to many digitally shot films I’ve seen that exhibit objectionable artifacts, lack of definition, and odd-looking colors. These traits have made me think that digital video has a long way to go before it will take over film. Mexico, on the other hand, looks astonishingly good. Rich, vibrant, detailed, and warm, these digital images have all the best attributes of film without the grain.

While the images deserve plenty of praise, so does the sound. Like all the Rodriguez movies I have seen, there is a swelling soundstage, great use of sound effects, and easy-to-discern dialogue. When push comes to shove, my only criticism comes from my audiophile background: voices sometimes sound a little "mechanical."

Most of my enjoyment of this DVD came in the extras section, which Rodriguez fills with features: "Ten Minute Flick School: Fast, Cheap, and in Control"; "Inside Troublemaker Studios"; "Film Is Dead: An Evening with Robert Rodriguez"; "The Anti-Hero’s Journey"; "The Good, the Bad, and the Bloody: Inside KNB FX"; and even "Ten Minute Cooking School: Puerco Pibil," which is dedicated to teaching untalented chefs such as I how to cook the dish that Depp’s Agent Sands likes so much.

Rodriguez’s featurettes let you look inside his world of filmmaking, from his sound studio to his editing room to the tricks he uses to pull off some of those eye-opening special effects to, of course, the use of high-definition digital video in this film. In particular, I was glued to "Film Is Dead," in which Rodriguez explains to an audience at a film seminar how he got started in digital cinematography, and why he believes it has now eclipsed film. One observation about Mexico, in particular, was startling. He explained that they used an "old camera," and that the film is "the worst you’ll ever see HD look." I imagine that’s overstatement -- in the wrong hands, even the best technology can produce poor results -- but if it’s true that Mexico’s look is now considered obsolete, I’m thrilled about what we might see next from those who, like Rodriguez, know how to use it.

Once Upon a Time in Mexico is not a great movie, and in some ways is not even a good one. But it is a great technical achievement. If all you plan to do is watch it for the story, I don’t recommend buying it -- it’s something you should rent and return the next day. But for those who want to learn more about the filmmaking process and digital cinematography, Once Upon a Time in Mexico is a fascinating disc full of indispensable extras that you probably will want in your DVD collection.

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