A spaghetti western in every sense of the word, "Desperado" is an exhilarating ride from start to finish. Stylish, humorous, and thoroughly engaging, it tells the tale of one mariachi's quest for revenge and redemption. Banderas delivers the performance that made him a star as the titular desperado. Smoldering and suave, he knows how to shoot up a bar as well as he masters the more romantic elements in the film, especially when the equally stunning Hayek comes into the picture. Their escape from a hotel together, resulting in the famous jumping off the roof scene, is pure pulp entertainment. Rodriguez should focus on making more films like this -- homages to great B- movies produced on an A-level scale.

When it comes to action and action alone, Desperado is one of the all-time greats. Robert Rodriguez makes too many mistakes for this to be a timeless giant like Terminator or Die Hard. But because of how good the action and writing are, it is in the same realm of true action masterpieces.Desperado is the bigger-budgeted sequel/remake of Robert Rodriguez's first film entitled El Mariachi. This is one of those sequels where it might help watching the original one first. Even by watching El Mariachi first, it does not clear up anything flaw that Desperado has.The one and only flaw I have to give this is the poor transition between the two films. El Mariachi is about a talented guitar player (played in that by Carlos Gallardo) who comes to a town in search of work, where he becomes the subject of a huge case of mistaken identity and bears witness to drug lord, Moco, murder his girlfriend, Domino. He shoots El's hand and El shoots and kills him. In this El (now played by Antonio Banderas) seeks vengeance against another drug lord known as Bucho for murdering Domino. Bucho had nothing to do with the first film, and he already got his revenge against Moco, whom he knew was responsible. There's even a flashback scene with Domino and Moco. This unclarity was the main reason why this meant any sort of negativity. The most logical assumption was that Bucho was a high-ranking drug lord just above Moco, But that assumption does not give our hero a truly clear motive for going on a killing spree. This is a revenge story, but the movie never gives any point behind it all.My inference to this is like Hamlet. (This is just what I interpret). After El kills Moco, his hand is maimed, his girlfriend is dead, and he is out of work. He has no other reason to live. Carolina says to him: "I've heard of you, you kill drug dealers." Given how much longer the character's hair has gotten and how much he's improved in his shooting abilities, it is evident that some time has passed. So El must've gone on a killing spree, getting everybody underneath Bucho. How is this like Hamlet? Hamlet has no reason to live, until he plots to avenge his father's death. Avenging his father's death has given him a reason to stay alive, so he procrastinates actually going through with it. After he gets revenge, he has no other point in living. El is pretty much the same way. If he doesn't go after all of Bucho's men (then Bucho himself) he has no point in living. Revenge has consumed their entire lives, giving new meaning, which they don't want to let go of. Well, this is my interpretation of it anyway!El arrives in a new town in Mexico where he destroys Bucho's goons with the help of his special guitar case. The lack of identity has Bucho paranoid, while El falls in love with bookstore owner, Carolina (Hayak) who works under Bucho. The relationship between Carolina and Bucho is exactly like Domino and Moco. There's a few other details which give this a remake feel. Desperado is a modern-day spaghetti western. Our nameless hero, only known as El Mariachi, battles armies by himself, where clichés are always around. A bunch of guys shoot him at close range with machine guns and miss, but El shoots them once and they die. Although the clichés are noticeable, the action sequences are loud, intense, gory, and awesome. Although this was made long after gunfights became an art form, almost every action scene this has beats many classic action movies. When it comes to violence, I know good from bad and this is full of some of the best. The first time I watched this (before I exactly knew good movies from bad ones) I was blown away. Despite my knowledge in movies growing since then, it still rocks me every time I see this. Although the action is really what makes this, it is not the only redeeming quality. Whenever there is music playing, it fits. There's rock, blues, and Spanish music put in their respective places, making the scenes that much better. The love story between El and Carolina is even pulled off, despite being generic. And Rodriguez constructs each character to a high degree. He is able to do this by creating killer dialogue, including a hilarious joke given by Quentin Tarantino. So even though there is a big gap between this and the first resulting in a shallow general plot, Desperado is a dynamite tribute to spaghetti westerns with fill redemption which will remain one of the best action movies ever.

If you've ever had a boyhood dream of making a movie, it would probably have looked something like "Desperado". The entire structure is basically this: a fantastic B-actor does a long monologue, then a gunfight breaks out. It's 70s exploitation with 90s skill and 90s Steve Buscemi. While predecessor "El Mariachi" did have a more raw feel to it, this one stands through the comparison because it shows how much more creative Robert Rodriguez can still get with a higher budget. The change of actor from virtually unknown Carlos Gallardo to the more bankable Antonio Banderas isn't quite seamless, but after a while you do sorta buy him as a bad-ass. "Desperado" is the salt and pepper of cinema, the little extra spice that lives by some of Hollywood's rules but stands out by how it breaks all of the others. We need to cherish movies like these, movies that go purely for the entertainment value and don't care about anything else. "Desperado" is action as it should be: anything goes, no holds barred so you're completely caught up.

Sure, Director Robert Rodriguez created one of the very best indie films with El Mariachi on a shoestring budget. Now, with bucks in his pocket and a name cast, there is room for excellence. Some may say that the low budget effort is better, and I won't totally disagree from an artistic standpoint, but from an entertainment standpoint, this venture with Antonio Bandaras and Salma Hayek is truly a cut above many other films.The state-of-the-art special effects and polished effort Rodriguez put into this film, make for an enjoyable and explosive ride. And did I mention Salma Hayek and her chesty chimichangas?