Disc Reviews

The Mexico Trilogy Review

• 26th Aug 2024

If you are a fan of action cinema and film-making, then this trilogy is for you! This pocket in time from the early 90s to the early 00s, as some other filmmakers will attest, is a great crash course I filmmaking and a great romp in the South American state of Mexico. You can seen all the wild excess of Robert Rodriguez’s cinematic flair charted in this trilogy of film.

The first film, El Mariachi, is low-budget, cheap, but impressive for what it pulls off at the time. IOtis heralded as a quick masterclass on how to shoot on the cheap and deliver something that works and is engaging.

Desperado (which comes with a Bluray and the only one to also have a 4K disc present) sees the director pull off the same trick but with a larger budget and a well-crafted cast and crew. By this the olessons extends and you see how well they utilise that larger budget. It also helped turn Antonia Banderas into an international star, and Rodrigeuz’s career also skyrocketed.

The third film, Once Upon A Time in Mexico,  sees all the flamboyance hit the screen at high impact. The cast is even bigger, the plot more convoluted, the scope immense, and yet it still feels like low-budget cinema and, like many of the characters in the film, is hiding something up its sleeve.  The third film had no reason to play sleight-of-hand with the audience, however. It merely had to tell a good story, but instead, Rodrigeuz’s paranoia got the better of him and he tripled down on cheap tricks and headache-inducing editing to cover up what?  He should have had nothing to cover up. He should have simply been at ease to show us what he was capable of. The first two films exemplify a man who wants in on the game, has something to say, but, has to resort to film-maker tricks to get there.  The third film seems to tells us that he was only ever about the tricks anyway.

It’s very strange that with such a fascinating cast (All bettered by a glorious turn from Johnny Deep), some gleeful dialogue, and of course the odd action beat or two that the third film feels like an absolute slog to get through. Maybe there was too much packed in, or that many scenes begin with music aggrandising and the tempo of the scenes yo-yo’d the audiences about that it ended up feeling long.  Characters are left underdeveloped (like the villains of the piece. They look great, they do bad things, but there are often left to the side).

All three films were previously adorned with decent extra features. Thankfully all three films here have those extras in support, but there are a slew of new interviews with some of the key components of each film – Including Rodriguez himself, El Mariachi Star Carlos Gallardo, the stunt team, and a very nice appreciation from “The Raid” director Gareth Evans.

This is the best package yet for the trilogy. We suspect something even better awaits down the line.

Steven Hurst

Full contents:

• High Definition (1080p) Blu-ray presentations of all three films
• 4K (2160p) Ultra HD Blu-ray presentation in Dolby Vision (HDR10 compatible) of Desperado
• Illustrated collector’s booklet featuring new writing by Carlos Aguilar and Nicholas Clement
• Reversible sleeves featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Paul Shipper
• Collectable poster featuring Robert Rodriguez’s original poster concept for El Mariachi

DISC 1 – EL MARIACHI (BLU-RAY)

• Original uncompressed Latin-American Spanish stereo audio, plus an English dub in lossless stereo
• Optional English subtitles, plus English subtitles for the deaf and hard-of-hearing
• Commentary by writer-director Robert Rodriguez
• Big Vision Low Budget, a newly filmed interview with Rodriguez
• The Original Mariachi, a newly filmed interview with producer/star Carlos Gallardo
• The Music of ‘El Mariachi’, a newly produced featurette on the music in the film, featuring interviews with composers Eric Guthrie, Chris Knudson, Alvaro Rodriguez and Marc Trujillo
• Ten Minute Film School, an archive featurette produced and narrated by Rodriguez
• Bedhead, a 1991 short film by Rodriguez
• Theatrical trailer and TV spot

DISCS 2 & 3 – DESPERADO (BLU-RAY / 4K ULTRA HD BLU-RAY)

• New 4K restoration from the original camera negative by Sony Pictures
• Original uncompressed stereo audio and DTS-HD MA 5.1 surround audio
• Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard-of-hearing
• Audio commentary by writer-director Robert Rodriguez
• Lean and Mean, a newly filmed interview with Rodriguez
• Shoot Like Crazy, a newly filmed interview with producer Bill Borden
• Kill Count, a newly filmed interview with stunt coordinator Steve Davison
• Lock and Load, a newly filmed interview with special effects coordinator Bob Shelley
• Game Changer, a newly filmed appreciation by filmmaker Gareth Evans (The Raid)
• Ten More Minutes: Anatomy of a Shootout, an archive featurette narrated by Rodriguez
• Textless opening (“Morena de mi Corazón”)
• Theatrical trailers

DISC 4 – ONCE UPON A TIME IN MEXICO (BLU-RAY)

• Original DTS-HD MA 5.1 surround and 2.0 stereo audio
• Optional English subtitles for the deaf and hard-of-hearing
• Commentary by writer-director Robert Rodriguez
• The Revolution Will Be Digitized, a newly filmed interview with Rodriguez
• Troublemakin’, a newly filmed interview with visual effects editor Ethan Maniquis
• Eight deleted scenes, with optional commentary by Rodriguez
• Ten Minute Flick School, an archive featurette narrated by Rodriguez
• Inside Troublemaker Studios, an archive featurette on Rodriguez’s studio in Austin
• Ten Minute Cooking School, an archive featurette in which Rodriguez shows you how to cook Puerco Pibil
• Film is Dead: An Evening with Robert Rodriguez, a presentation by the director given in 2003
• The Anti-Hero’s Journey, an archive featurette on the arc of the Mariachi
• The Good, the Bad and the Bloody: Inside KNB FX, an archive featurette on the film’s special effects
• Theatrical trailers

The Mexico Trilogy  is out on 26^th August