In the early days of film, movies were based on popular stories and real-life tales. As filmmaking progressed, a trend began where stories were written exclusively for the movies, and this has continued. One would assume that making a movie is a grand undertaking, and one would want the story behind the movie to be a solid one. Yet, we've seen movies based on the flimsiest of source materials. From toys to video games to sketch-show characters, real, big-budget movies have been made where no real idea seemed to exist. When Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino's double-feature Grindhouse premiered in 2007, the piece that created the most discussion was the fake trailers embedded in the movie. One of these was for an action movie called Machete. Well, here we are three years later and there's a real Machete movie. Can the movie do the fake trailer justice?

Danny Trejo stars in Machete as the titular character, a Mexican federale. As the film opens, Machete is attempting to rescue a girl who has been kidnapped by Torrez (Steven Seagal), an evil kingpin. The rescue goes awry and Machete learns that Torrez has gotten to his wife and daughter. The story then jumps ahead three years, where Machete attempts to blend in with other illegal alien day-laborers in an American city. (Texas? Arizona?) Machete is hired by Booth (Jeff Fahey) to assassinate controversial Senator McLaughlin (Robert De Niro), who has been outspoken on immigration. The plot is just a ruse and Machete quickly realizes that he's been framed. Immigration agent Sartana Rivera (Jessica Alba) gets involved in the investigation, and she immediately suspects "The Network", a group led by lunch-truck worker Luz (Michelle Rodriguez), but when she meet Machete, she begins to understand the situation. With Sartana's help, Machete puts together a plan to clear his name.

A movie based on a fake trailer probably shouldn't be taken seriously, and clearly, most of Machete falls into this category. This is an over-the-top action movie which harkens back to the cheap exploitation films of the 70s. The movies contains plenty of violence and sex (although there wasn't as much nudity as I'd heard). Some of the action scenes are pretty straight-forward, playing like something that you would see in most any movie. However, the opening sequence and the hospital escape are insanely gory, reminiscent of something from an early Peter Jackson movie. Rodriguez, along with his co-director Ethan Maniquis, stage these scenes with a lot of kinetic energy.

Unfortunately, this energy isn't maintained throughout the film. It's odd to accuse a movie like this of being over-written, but, again, aping action movies from the 70s, Machete explores the corruption between Booth and the Senator. There are a lot of dialogue scenes involving the double-crossing and they really slow the film down. I mentioned earlier that the movie shouldn't be taken seriously, but I'm not sure that this was Rodriguez's intention. The bulk of the movie concerns U.S. immigration laws, and the movie doesn't back off from pushing a political agenda. That's fine, but can a movie which features a pair of scantily-clad machine-gun toting nurses really have a political agenda?

I really liked the first 30 minutes of Machete, especially the pre-credit sequence which maintains the worn-out look of Grindhouse (the rest of movie does not), but the movie really gets bogged-down as it goes along, and for what is meant to be a fun, breezy action movie, Machete is far too long. It took me three tries to finish the movie because it made me sleepy. To say that it's uneven would be an understatement. The political agenda is mixed with fanboy-esque scenes in which Tom Savini totes a big gun. The movie nudges us in the ribs and says, "Hey, isn't that cool? It's like his character in Dawn of the Dead." Yes, I get it, but that doesn't make it entertaining. Perhaps Rodriguez should have simply left us with the memory of that cool trailer.

Machete mixes medical trivia and carnage on Blu-ray Disc courtesy of 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment. The film has been letterboxed at 1.85:1 and the Disc contains an AVC 1080p HD transfer which runs at an average of 35 Mbps. Rodriguez is a big proponent of shooting digital, so Machete could have looked crystal clear. Again, the opening scene shows off faux dirt and scratches, as well as film splices. The rest of the film doesn't have this look, but it does carry a layer of grain, again to recreate that old movie feel. That aside, the image is very sharp and has a nice crispness to it. The image is never too dark or bright and the colors look good. The image has a nice level of detail and the depth is good as well. The Disc carries a DTS-HD Master Audio track which runs at 48 kHz and an average of 4.4 Mbps. The track provides clear dialogue and sound effects. It's almost funny how the film promotes it's old-school appearance, which having great surround sound. The stereo effects are nicely done, and we can hear individual gunshots in the front channels. The surround sound is excellent as well -- the action scenes fill the rear speakers with gunfire and explosions. The subwoofer gets in on the action as well, providing deep bass and thudding explosions.

For a Robert Rodriguez movie, the Machete Blu-ray Disc doesn't have many extras. The "Audience Reaction Track" is simply a recording of an audience watching the film. This contains the kind of whooping and hollering I was expecting. The Disc contains ten DELETED SCENES which run about 11 minutes. Most of these involve the fact that Sartana had a twin sister in the original cut. The most interesting scene introduces the assassins who are hired to got after Machete. The final extras are the THEATRICAL TRAILER and the RED BAND TRAILER.