Once Upon a Time in Mexico isn't worth your time

Once Upon a Time in Mexico, the title of the third movie in Robert Rodriguez's classic El Mariachi trilogy, invites you to visit an explosion-filled world of pistol-packing gunfighters, vengeful mariachis, crooked CIA agents, and beautiful women. What the title leaves out is exactly what happened once upon a time south of the border.

Allow me to fill in the blank: Once upon a time in Mexico a terrible movie was made. That should have been the title of this awkwardly paced, impossible to follow, and utterly unbelievable sequel to Desperado and El Mariachi, which was one of the greatest success stories of independent filmmaking.

What makes Once Upon a Time in Mexico so disappointing is the quality of its predecessors. Antonio Banderas and Salma Hayek rose to stardom through Desperado, which was action packed, easy to understand, and fun to watch, even if a bit unbelievable.

Not so with Once Upon a Time. I'll try to explain the plot basics, but I can't go any more in depth, because I'm really not sure what exactly happened. Sands (Johnny Depp) is a CIA agent working in Mexico against the drug lord Barillo, who plans to kill the Mexican president. However, Sands' plan is to let el Presidente die, kill the leader of the coup, and somehow steal 20 million pesos that are conveniently lying around. Sands is an expert puppet master, manipulating or forcing dozens of people into helping him. However, the tables quickly turn as it becomes completely unclear who is on what side, who is doing what, and most importantly, why?

El Mariachi (Antonio Banderas) is hired by Sands to kill the general who will lead the coup, but only after el Presidente is dead. It just so happens that this evil general is also the man who murdered El Mariachi's wife and daughter. About fifty more side characters are added to the mix, and the plot spirals totally out of control as every single person tries to simultaneously backstab every one else. I would mention Salma Hayek's part, but it turns out the previews are vastly misleading, and she's only in the movie for about five minutes, all in flashbacks.

The plot is very fast paced and hard to follow, far too complex for a Western-style action movie. Also, there is a lot less action than in Desperado, and the pacing is terrible. A quarter of the movie is spent is spent in confusing flashbacks, a quarter is spent in slow motion watching El Mariachi contemplate these flashbacks, a quarter is spent trying to explain the inane plot, and only a quarter is spent watching actual action scenes.

Much like in Desperado, the Mexican drug cartels and armed forces seem to have hired exclusively blind gunmen with no training whatsoever in the use of firearms. Maybe this was because of some kind of affirmative action program to get more blind people into jobs involving shooting people, but it was a pretty bad choice since it enables El Mariachi and Sands to kill approximately 3,049,234 henchmen with only pistols.

The drug cartels and soldiers have an even harder time fighting El Mariachi because of the fact that everyone in Mexico apparently owns and carries at least one high-powered assault weapon, which they are just dying to use on against the first drug dealer or soldier they see. One of the main lessons of this movie is that Mexico is an extremely dangerous place.

One especially bright point of this dull movie is the acting of Antonio Banderas and Johnny Depp. Banderas plays the Mariachi to perfection, delivering his spare lines in between gunfights with the quiet power of a truly dangerous man. But Depp is the true star of this movie, completely stealing the show. His character Sands is hilarious and treacherous, loveable and despicable. Depp pulls off some of the best gunslinger moves and great one-liners in action movie history. Even after he loses his eyes in a horrible torture scene, he still has better aim than everyone else in Mexico. Who cares if he spends half of the movie wasting civilians? However, both of these talented actors are held back by the terribly fragmented script.

Sadly, Once Upon a Time is mostly wasted potential. This movie definitely could have been great if it had stuck to the simple formula of El Mariachi and Desperado – there are evil people, and El Mariachi must kill them. Instead, the director chose to include so many side characters and plots that El Mariachi, supposedly the star, has barely any screen time, and the plot is as frustrating to solve as a Rubik's cube. All in all, this movie is a disappointing sequel and sad end to the El Mariachi trilogy.