Additonal Captures

Chopped, Shot and Scored by: Robert Rodriguez

Co-Stars: Johnny Depp (Agent Sands); Salma Hayek (Carolina); Willem Dafoe (Barillo); Ruben Blades (Agent Jorge Ramirez); Mickey Rourke (Billy Chambers); Danny Trejo (Cucuy); Enrique Iglesias (Lorenzo); Cheech Marin (Belini)

Release Date: September 12, 2003

Filming Locations: San Miguel de Allende and Guanajuato, Mexico

“They call him ‘El’, as in ‘the.’” (Cucuy)

“Once Upon A Time In Mexico” is the third installment (and supposedly final one) in the El Mariachi trilogy, following “Desperado”, the launching pad for Antonio’s American film career, Salma Hayek, and Quentin Tarantino (and the beginning of a new kind of movie-making). Not a sequel, but a similar tale told with familiar players in a familiar setting, it is an opportunity for director Robert Rodriguez to strut his famous guitar-playing hero for his final act.

The story goes something like this: El Mariachi (Antonio) is in self-imposed exile after the death of his wife, Carolina (Salma Hayek), and their daughter, seen through vivid flashbacks. He lives in a town devoted to the handcrafting of guitars. He now has a leather sleeve over his injured hand, which apparently gives him the support needed to again play his beloved guitar. The townspeople obviously idolize him, and bring their new guitars to him to test. It is a quiet and peaceful, but lonely, existence.

Sands: I never heard of him.
Belini: Who?
Sands: The man you recommended.
Belini: The man is a myth, a legend…and if he’s still living, he’s the one you want.

El, who has achieved folk status as a wandering drug-cartel vigilante, is forced less than politely out of retirement by the rather sleazy, ethically-challenged, corrupt CIA agent Sands (Johnny Depp). Sands tracks El down with the help of a talkative informant (Cheech Marin and Cucuy’s band of thugs (the wonderful back-from-the-dead Danny Trejo, of “Desperado” knife-throwing fame). Sands wants El to intervene in an assassination attempt on the corruption-busting president of Mexico.

Agent Sands: “I need you to kill a man. He’s being paid to kill the President.”
El Mariachi: “So why me?”
Agent Sands: “Well, frankly, because you don’t have anything to live for.”

Sands reports that the murder will take place during a coup attempt by General Marquez (Gerardo Vigil) – the man who murdered Carolina. Good bait because Marquez is the only person who can compel El to kill again. His blood boils (quietly) at the prospect of avenging the death of his beloved wife and daughter. The coup and assassination is being orchestrated by Barillo (Willem Dafoe), the leader of a powerful drug cartel who has his sights set on ascending to the presidency. Sands has discovered the plot and sees it as an opportunity to line his own pockets. So, learning that the legendary El M has his own score to settle with Marquez, he enlists the troubled musician to kill the General. But Sands has also set in motion a retired FBI agent (Ruben Blades) with a beef to settle with Barillo (he caused the death of his partner), a dog-loving crook sick of Mexico (Mickey Rourke and his chihuahua), a quest for the perfect pork dish, and a violent bloodbath on the city streets. All this in the hope to further confuse the attempt on the President so he can escape with the 20 million pesos promised to General Marquez. You gotta love it!

El Mariachi: “I’m here for my guitar.”
Lorenzo: “I never thought you’d come back for this thing.”
El Mariachi: “Neither did I.”

El wants nothing more than to avenge the killing of his wife and daughter. So he rounds up his band of mariachis (Iglesias and Marco Leonardi), they grab their guitars and guns and go to work. Defeating the General's army is second thought until our Mariachi overhears the President and quickly determines that he is a good man and a fine countryman—mi compadre. It all results in eye-gouging, shotgun-to-the-midriff-body-flying, flag-waving, freedom-loving, explosive, non-stop action. El saves the day (and the President), finishes off Marquez, collects the money and returns to the quiet village – and peace, the one thing he wanted most in life.

Sands: Are you still standing?
El: Still

Antonio on the film and his role:

“We are not doing serious violence. Serious violence is Coppola, where you find the head of a horse in the bed of a gangster. This is opera, this is Spanish. He’s a very sad character, very romantic. He lives alone in a big mansion that was totally destroyed, and the only relationships he has are with these guitar makers. He plays a lot of soulful ballads. And then he goes after the man who killed his wife.”

“The character of El Mariachi comes to life through action and movement rather than dialogue. He is basically a classic hero in that sense. He speaks very little and moves like a bullfighter or a flamenco dancer. When he shoots a gun, it’s like he’s playing a guitar. They are the same to him.”

“You have to have a sense of humor to understand this. You have to be amused by what we are presenting. The violence in the movie is unreal. It’s just pure choreography.”

“I consider this movie to be a visual fantasy. I think it is action, magic, realism. He [Robert] is just bringing something that is new to the big screen.”

Robert Rodriguez: “Antonio plays him very much like the artist as hero, where he’s an artist who can no longer express himself creatively. “So he bottles up all his emotions and ultimately explodes.”

Sands: You really must try this. It is a slow-roasted pork. Nothing fancy. Just happens to be my favorite... Honestly, that is the best it’s ever been. Anywhere. In fact, it’s too good. It is so good that when I’m finished with it, I’ll pay my check, walk straight into the kitchen, and shoot the cook. I restore the balance to this country, and that is what I would like from you right now.
El: You want me to shoot the cook?
Sands: No, I’ll shoot the cook. My car is parked out back anyway.

For the most part, the critics “got” the film, but perhaps even more appreciated Rodriguez’s “vision” and his immense talent as an innovative filmmaker. And they liked Antonio too!:

Robert Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times:
“After Robert Rodriguez made…’El Mariachi’ and ‘Desperado’…Quentin Tarantino told him they were the Mexican equivalent of Sergio Leone’s first two spaghetti Westerns. After the low-budget ‘A Fistful of Dollars’ and ‘For a Few Dollars More’, Leone moved up to bigger budgets for ‘The Good, the Bad and the Ugly’ and ‘Once Upon a Time in the West” [all but the last starring Clint Eastwood] and therefore, Tarantino told his friend [he] should now make ‘Once Upon a Time in Mexico’…Like Leone’s films, the Rodriquez epic is more interested in the moment, in great shots, in surprises and ironic reversals and close-ups of sweaty faces, than in a coherent story. Both movies feed on the music of heroism and lament. Both paint their stories in bold, bright colors. Both go for sensational kills: if Clint Eastwood kills three men with one bullet, Salma Hayek kills four men with four knives, all thrown at once. In my review of ‘Desperado’, I praised Rodriguez for his technical skill and creative energy, but said he hadn't learned to structure a story so we cared about what happened. That's still true in [this film] but you know what? I didn't mind. I understood the general outlines of the story, I liked the bold strokes he uses to create the characters, and I was amused by the camera work, which includes a lot of shots that are about themselves. There are lots of fancy shots in the movie, but nothing quite equals a sensational sequence in which Banderas and Hayek, who are chained together, escape from a high-rise apartment and somehow rappel to the ground with one hanging on while the other swings down to the next level. Neat…What bubbles beneath all of Rodriguez’s work is an impatient joy in the act of filmmaking.”

Peter Travers, Rolling Stone:
“Antonio Banderas -- looking every inch the romantic…Just sit back and let Rodriguez take you to popcorn-movie heaven.”

Sands: "Are you a Mexi-can or a Mexi-can't?”

Andrew O’Hehir, salon.com:
“Roll over, Sam Peckinpah. Make some room at the bar, John Woo. There's a new action-movie gunslinger in town. He's got a guitar. He's got a gun. (Well, a lot of guns.) He's a loyal son of Mexico. He's living la vida loca!…It's an exploding piñata, full of low comedy and high drama, deliriously colorful fight scenes and vehicle chases. It's pseudo-Latin high camp that transcends itself, becoming a passionate love letter to its director's ancestral homeland. It's farce that becomes tragedy, or maybe it's farce and tragedy at the same time. It's pure escapist entertainment.”

Terry Lawson, Denver Post:
“…[W]hen Rodriguez called Banderas two years ago to confirm his commitment to a third chapter, Banderas figured it would be some time before he put the artillery back in his guitar case. “He told me he had a meeting that week at Columbia to pitch the project, and I said, ‘Great, send me the script,’ Banderas said. ‘He said, “I don’t have a script.” And I said, ‘What’s the story, then?’ He said, “I don’t have one, but I’ll think of one before the meeting.” So I figure they’ll send him away and tell him to come back with the script and we’ll make the movie six months later, when I’m not busy. No problem. He calls me a few days later, and says, “Can you starting shooting in three weeks? They loved it. They’re giving me $70 million. It’s going to be an epic!” I said, ‘What about the script?’ He said not to worry, he’d have one. And what he didn’t have, we’d just make up.”

El Mariachi: “Then I guess I have no choice but to kill you all.”

Christy Lemire, CNN.com:
“[It’s] a joy to see Rodriguez return to the kind of film he made his name with, the kind he does best: a rock ‘n roll Western that has stylized violence but doesn’t take itself too seriously…[Banderas] brings a quiet strength and a spirituality to the film…one of the most gorgeous casts ever assembled…it’s all about shootouts and standout performances…A sequence in which Hayek and Banderas swing from floor to floor off the front of a five-story building, while being chained at the wrist and dodging bullets, is especially thrilling…a giddy roller-coaster ride for grown ups only.”

Sean P. Means, The Salt Lake Tribune:
“That kid-in-a-candy-store attitude infuses every moment of this sprawling, overstuffed and giddily inventive action drama…Rodriguez’s mix of gunfights, standoffs and chase scenes overflows with originality…[It’s] like a paella overfilled with yummy ingredients and encouraging you to gorge.”

Claudia Puig, USA TODAY:
“…a rugged Antonio Banderas, who is perfect for the role of a man haunted by grief…and [his] smoldering appeal go a long way toward softening the blow of Mexico's bullet-riddled action sequences.”

Scott Huber, Filmcritic.com:
“El Mariachi returns with his Mexi-CAN-do bravura, and a whacked-out Johnny Depp in high form. This is Braveheart with huevos…[It] feels like a bullfight on acid or a dish of carne asade peppered with just the right comedic seasoning…a mega cast.”

Can you dig it? (Agent Sands)

Related Information

Rodriguez personally operated the new Sony 24-fps digital Hi-Def camera. This movie looks great. The picture is bright, crisp and detailed. I had the opportunity to see the film both on a regular screen and in digital format. It was simply amazing.

If Rodriguez calls on him to star in a fourth El Mariachi movie (which the director has hinted is a possibility), Antonio won’t hesitate. “I love working with him, and I am not even thinking career-wise,” Antonio says. “In fact, I don’t really give a damn about my career. Anything he calls me to do I will do, no question.” “With Robert, I would go to hell. No problema. Anything he wants.”

Robert: “I did something with this movie that was kind of odd since the series was already sort of strange. I thought let’s not make part 3. Let’s make part 4, and let’s have flashbacks to a part 3 that doesn’t exist so that you almost wish you could see that third movie in there. But you can get on with the epic tale in the fourth. So that’s why you have flashbacks to the adventures Antonio and Salma shared. It’s almost like a third phantom movie that happened between ‘Desperado’ and ‘Once Upon a Time in Mexico”.

Get some terrific additonal information about Once Upon a Time In Mexico - click here

Film Synopsis by Lisa