All right! I was looking forward to this, the third of Robert Rodrigues' "El Mariachi" trilogy. The first two was excellent, especially the first, but the second brought us Salma Hayek. I won't dwell on the first two, so what about this then?

I've stayed away from other reviews and all publicity for this film. Didn't even see the trailer, just to stay "clean" from contaminating views. My first surprise came during the intro credits - two of my absolute favorite actors, Johnny Depp and Willem Dafoe was in it! Both are always doing solid perfomances, so my expectation started to rise. Well, as it turned out, that was the best it would get. I never felt with any of the characters, as none of them are believable. There's the retired FBI Agent, the plotting CIA Agent, the Henchman who wants to go home to the US, and then there's the Mariachis... Sorry, but this just is the worst drivel I've seen in a while. C'mon, Mr Rodrigues! You gotta have believable characters in a movie! You can't build a movie around this kind of whimsical characters with no foundation in reality. Sure, the Mariachi is part legend, but come on! I felt almost insulted as I watched this shambles of a movie. It never felt with any of the characters. You could see the ending a mile off.

Ok, what about the action? Desperado and El Mariachi had good action, but sadly, this one has not. It's a load of badly edited sequences pieced togeter with duck-tape. There are a few scenes which pay homage to Sergio Leone, but it still reminds me of a poor Italian 1960's western that no one in their right mind would watch.

What about eye-candy for the boys? Selma is in a few short sequences, and that's it. Eva Mendez was just irritating and totally miscast. Not enough skin to satisfy us with an eye for beautiful women...

I was hoping for a much better movie, but I must admit that I feel cheated. Cheated of the good movie is could have been, but isn't.

My Rating: 3/10