Desperado

Less a sequel than a loose, bigger-budget remake of El Mariachi, Rodriguez's second feature may be a rambling, derivative exercise in gratuitous violence, but its determination to proceed as if the word 'restraint' never existed makes for gleeful entertainment. The story takes off from and rehashes the first film. Out to avenge his girlfriend's death, the mariachi (Banderas) turns up in a lawless border town, determined, against the advice of his buddy Buscemi (Steve, that is), to kill drug-lord Bucho (De Almeida). There's a hitch: Bucho knows he's targeted, and orders his myriad henchmen to waste anybody new in town. Happily, after a run-in with one such thug, the mariachi falls in with bookstore proprietor Carolina (Hayek), who offers him shelter from the storm of bullets. Humour comes mainly via Buscemi, De Almeida and, in a pleasingly curtailed cameo, a mugging Tarantino. If the irony and invention lacks the light touch of El Mariachi, there's more than enough preposterous pleasure to be had from Rodriguez's expertise with the action set-pieces and absurdist approach to the story's mythical aspirations. Bloody good fun.