Desperado

This was a solid and highly enjoyable take on the spaghetti western by Rodriguez that rightfully put the director on the map and provided star Antonio Banderas the breakthrough he needed in the American marketplace. Though I love his work on the Sin City films, particularly the first, his incredible earlier trilogy will always hold a special place in my cinephilic heart.

My recent project of coming to terms with classic Westerns has only further helped me enjoy these more recent contemporary releases.

Action, shots, bullets and latinxploitation?

I confess that I expected something more from this film. I was left with the feeling that it has little to offer us other than two tons of spectacular action scenes, with explosions, hundreds of gunshots and some gratuitous destruction. Even more: it reminded me of those films from the 70s, which we call blaxploitation because they reinforced a series of stereotypes about the African-American community: if we pay attention, we have almost all the stereotypes attributed to Latinos and Mexicans-Americans.

In general, I'm not a fan of political correctness and I don't care about stereotypes! I deal with this well, being a proud Portuguese who was born and lives in a Latin country, but I am...