Desperado: Film #160 of Film 365

Tuesday 15th May

Director: Robert Rodriguez
Year: 1995
Stars: Antonio Banderas, Salma Hayek, Joaquim de Almeida, Steve Buscemi

Hmm... it’s taken me a while to get around to writing this. A week and a half, in fact. In case you hadn’t guessed, this also means I’ve had no time at all to watch any other movies. Anyway, on to the review.

I’ve loved Desperado for a long time, but it’s also been a while since I’ve watched it. So when I saw that it was being shown on Five USA (not a random channel at all...), I thought it was a good opportunity to re-watch it. Desperado is, loosely, a remake of the Spanish movie El Mariachi. Whilst El Mariachi is also good, I actually prefer Desperado. I’ve always been something of a Rodriguez fan (my first introduction to him was watching From Dusk to Dawn- still a favourite- long before I probably should have done); and it still annoys me that I’ve not yet managed to see The Grindhouse movies.

Desperado is all about El Mariachi (Banderas), a man who used to be a mariachi but is now out for revenge after his lover was killed. We don’t really know much about the person who killed his lover until the end of the movie, except for the fact that his name is Bucho. A typical Rodriguez movie, this is very stylised – although also very obviously filmed in the 1990s. The movie is definitely dated, but it’s still a fun watch. What’s not to like when you have guns disguised as guitars, Antonio Banderas and Rodriguez directing? Maybe it’s just me.

Rating: 4 out of 5

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I live in Bristol with my husband Dan (who I married in July 2007), my son Joe (born 2012) and daughter Jess (born 2015). I work at UWE (the University of the West of England) in Bristol as a Research and Open Access Librarian. I'm orginally from Exeter, so moving back to Bristol is a bit like coming home - especially as I studied for my undergraduate degree here (also at UWE). I love travelling and movies, although I get to do a lot less of both since the birth of our children. Although we have still managed to fit in holidays to the Isles of Scilly, Chamonix and a summer in California since Joe was born.