Desperado-Superbit (1995)

"...never boring...  James Berardinelli, ReelViews
"Desperado gets the job done.  Toronto Sun

Editor's Note The no-named Mariachi (Antonio Banderas) tracks down the last Mexican drug-lord "Bucho" with the help of his best friend and a beautiful book store owner (Salma Hayek). In a poetically violent style reminiscent of John Woo and Sam Peckinpah, the Mariachi takes on his entire army of henchmen in a dusty border town as an act of revenge for the murder of his love and his injured musician's hand. Robert Rodriguez's big budget sequel to "El Mariachi." Also starring Cheech Marin (of Cheech and Chong) and Steve Buscemi (RESERVOIR DOGS).

	Antonio Banderas
	Carlos G—mez
	Joaquim De Almeida
	Quentin Tarantino
	Salma Hayek
	Steve Buscemi
	Robert Rodriguez - Director
	Guillermo Navarro - Director of Photography
	Tito Larriva - Musical Score
	Los Lobos - Musical Score
	Robert Rodriguez - Producer
	Bill Borden - Producer
	Robert Rodriguez - Screenplay

Director Robert Rodriguez' sequel to his 1993 ultra low-budget movie, "El Mariachi." This film continues the story of the no-name, solitary, brooding mariachi, whose guitar case is stocked with high-powered weaponry. The musician is in a sleepy Mexican town seeking revenge against the much-feared, ruthless Bucho, a drug dealer who once shot El Mariachi in his strumming hand, and killed his girlfriend. When Bucho hears that the guitarist is looking for him, he sends his men out to forestall the attack -- which leads to many well-choreographed and bloody shootouts. Will the Latin adversaries ever confront each other directly? And if so, who will survive?

"The client is always wrong." ---- sign in the bar run by Short Bartender (CHEECH MARIN).

"It's easier to pull the trigger than play the guitar.... It's easier to destroy than to create." ---- El Mariachi (ANTONIO BANDERAS)

Rolling Stone
"...Antonio Banderas is the ultimate in sexy action cool....The stunts dazzle..." 09/07/1995 p.76-7

Sight and Sound
"....Breathtaking....[Rodriguez] makes adventurous use of the camera..." 02/01/1996 p.38

Entertainment Weekly
"...[A] propulsive rock & roll spaghetti Western....Wittily hyperbolic..." -- Rating: B 09/22/1995 p.62

Variety
"...[The film] could scarcely be more dazzling on a purely visual level....There is no question of imagination working overtime..." 05/29/1995

Total Film
"...On a visual level, DESPERADO is a dazzlingly indulgent exercise..." 08/01/2000 p.100

Box Office Magazine 7 of 10
Desperado is such a fun, exhilarating film and its star, Antonio Banderas, so stunningly photographed in every frame that this movie might do for his American career what Legends of the Fall did for Brad Pitt... There's shooting aplenty in Desperado, but the violence is so stylized and the conflicts so lovingly evocative of spaghetti westerns that the tone remains light throughout. - Lael Lowenstein

Chicago Sun-Times 7 of 10
(Writer/director Rodriguez) has a gift for visuals that can make scenes dance on the screen. Like Sergio Leone, who lifted those early Clint Eastwood spaghetti Westerns out of their genre and made them something special, Rodriguez knows how to handle atmosphere and sudden explosions of violence. - Rober Ebert