Robert Rodriguez’s Mexico trilogy, consisting of El Mariachi, Desperado, and Once Upon a Time in Mexico, offers a distinct and violent twist on traditional Westerns. The films blend spaghetti Western influences with Mexican culture, showcasing Rodriguez’s playful and offbeat filmmaking style. While not as tightly narrative-driven as epic trilogies like The Lord of the Rings, they balance thematic and storytelling elements, evolving in polish and humor across the series.
If you're after traditional Westerns, you're not going to find them here. The movies that make up Robert Rodriguez ’s Mexico trilogy are all a little offbeat, unusual at times, and also a good deal more violent than most Westerns.
Not, like, Bone Tomahawk level or anything, but they're probably not the sorts of Westerns your dad or grandfather would like, unless they're open-minded, or they might if they dug spaghetti Westerns back in the day. Not that these are spaghetti Westerns, but they’ve got that sort of attitude and playfulness, all the while being very, you know, Mexico-heavy. It’s the Mexico trilogy, or it’s sometimes called the El Mariachi or Desperado trilogy.
Those are the two movies that begin the trilogy, which things come to a messy and explosive climax with Once Upon a Time in Mexico, which isn't quite Once Upon a Time in the West or Once Upon a Time in America quality-wise, but it’s about what you'd expect an epic, by Rodriguez’s standards, to look like. He’s always been an interesting filmmaker, having made some very violent and goofy movies alongside some very nonviolent goofy movies, like Spy Kids.
And there was also Alita: Battle Angel, and the visually distinctive Sin City. But… sorry, no. Best to stick to the Mexico trilogy. Not a bad place to start, since El Mariachi is an almost perfect introduction to Rodriguez’s filmmaking style in a couple of ways. What Happens Throughout the 'Mexico' Trilogy What happens in these movies?
It’s not super important. It’s not a trilogy like The Lord of the Rings is a trilogy, but it isn't as loose as, say, a thematic trilogy like Edgar Wright’s Cornetto trilogy.
It rides a line between narrative and thematic trilogy, possibly being most comparable to the three Sam Raimi-directed Evil Dead movies, just because they got more polished and expansive – not to mention increasingly comedic – as they went along, and the trajectory from El Mariachi to Desperado to Once Upon a Time in Mexico isn't too dissimilar. In El Mariachi, the titular character is not yet played by Antonio Banderas, but Carlos Gallardo instead.
Mariachi is going through a town, all of it with a very neo-Western feel, and then he’s mistaken for a criminal, which sends his life temporarily into violent chaos. He has to fight his way from/through a bunch of adversaries.
Then, in Desperado, the budget was much bigger, and the narrative got a little more ambitious, with Mariachi seeking revenge after losing much of what was important to him during the chaotic events of El Mariachi. Salma Hayek memorably joins the cast here, while the likes of Steve Buscemi , Cheech Marin, and Danny Trejo are all fun in supporting roles.
There’s more revenge being sought in Once Upon a Time in Mexico , and a whole heap of wacky characters that make it veer perhaps a little close to broadly comedic territory at times. The Significance of the 'Mexico' Trilogy Within Robert Rodriguez's Filmography Johnny Depp, Mickey Rourke, Eva Mendes, Enrique Iglesias, and even Willem Dafoe all appeared in Once Upon a Time in Mexico, and it signified that Robert Rodriguez had really made it, as a full-on director, by this time.
Like, Depp was in the game-changing Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl the same year Once Upon a Time in Mexico came out, and he has a sizable role in the latter, so that likely raised the trilogy’s – and Rodriguez’s – profiles further. Once Upon a Time in Mexico had problems, but it showed he could do something bigger than he had before, and if it led to him getting a job as the co-director on the remarkable Sin City two years later, then that can’t be anything but a good thing.
Desperado, then, was Rodriguez doing what Raimi did with Evil Dead 2, saying, “Yeah, see what I did with a few thousand bucks? Give me a few million and I’ll blow you away. ” It’s most interesting to consider El Mariachi within the filmography of Robert Rodriguez, though. He famously made it for very little money when he was still in his early 20s, and some of that money came from the director himself participating in experimental clinical drug testing.
Like Kevin Smith with Clerks, he took a huge risk and made something strange for not much money, albeit still had it feel like a risk, and then things paid off. Desperado, then, was Rodriguez doing what Raimi did with Evil Dead 2, saying, “Yeah, see what I did with a few thousand bucks? Give me a few million and I’ll blow you away. ” Okay, maybe he didn’t say exactly that.
But he could’ve, and then he would've blown them away, because he handled that far greater budget with style . How the 'Mexico' Trilogy's Wildness and Sense of Escalation Make It Rewatchable The rest could be history, if Rodriguez had stopped making movies, or if he were procrastinating like Quentin Tarantino , but Rodriguez is still active and doing his own thing.
He’s a filmmaker who’s easy to respect and one worth reading into if you yourself have ever had aspirations of working within the film industry. His endeavors while making the Mexico trilogy and beyond are continually interesting, and the El Mariachi production is covered well in a Rodriguez-written book called Rebel Without a Crew: Or How a 23-Year-Old Filmmaker with $7,000 Became a Hollywood Player.
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It’s fun to rewatch El Mariachi having already read about it, or it’s also one of the most enjoyable movies to revisit with Rodriguez’s enlightening audio commentary. Desperado is fun to watch again and again because it’s such a relentless action movie that wastes no time giving people what they want, and then Once Upon a Time in Mexico… well, it’s interesting.
It’s a mess, but parts of that mess are fun, and the other parts of the mess you just have to struggle through. But such troubled films do sometimes find themselves worthy of critical re-evaluation eventually, one day, so who knows? It might end up happening to Once Upon a Time in Mexico. The only way to know is to not pretend it doesn’t exist and perhaps rewatch it from time to time.
Like Follow Followed El Mariachi Action Crime Thriller Western Release Date February 22, 1993 Runtime 81 minutes Director Robert Rodriguez Producers Carlos Gallardo Cast See All Powered by Expand Collapse
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