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Desperado (1995)

What:

 

He came back to settle the score with someone. Anyone. EVERYONE.

Desperado (1995) is an action thriller film written and directed by Robert Rodriguez. Rodriguez picks up where his successful independent debut El Mariachi left off with this slam-bang South of the Border action saga. Bucho (Joaquim DeAlmeida) is a wealthy but casually bloodthirsty drug kingpin who rules a seedy Mexican border town. Bucho and his men make the mistake of angering El Mariachi (Antonio Banderas), a former musician who now carries an arsenal in his guitar case. Bucho was responsible for the death of El Mariachi’s girlfriend and put a bullet through his fretting hand, making him unable to play the guitar. Bent on revenge, the musician-turned-killing machine arrives in town to put Bucho out of business, though he finds few allies except for Carolina (Salma Hayek), who runs a bookstore that doesn’t seem to attract many readers. Desperado features supporting performances from Cheech Marin as a cynical bartender, Steve Buscemi as the cantina patron who sets up the story, and Quentin Tarantino as a man with a really terrible joke to tell.

This film is a sequel to the independent movie El Mariachi and the second entry in the “Mexico Trilogy”. It is debated that it is more of a remake than an actual sequel, while the plot does differ in many ways, several scenes are similar. When they are viewed in chronological order however, the stories do not line up. In “El Mariachi”, El kills the man who killed his lover, and as such there is no reason for him to seek out Bucho. A third theory has been postulated that perhaps this movie is an alternate ending to “El Mariachi”. Desperado helped to enhance the fame of Antonio Banderas and introduced Salma Hayek to American audiences. It was screened out of competition at the 1995 Cannes Film Festival.

When/where:

Dates
Time	11 p.m.
Phone	707-822-1220
Venue	Arcata Theatre Lounge
Cost	$5.00