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El Mariachi

Play trailer Poster for El Mariachi R Released Feb 26, 1993 1h 22m Action Play Trailer Watchlist
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91% Tomatometer 77 Reviews 76% Popcornmeter 50,000+ Ratings
El Mariachi (Carlos Gallardo) is a traveling guitar player with the modest desire to play music for a living. Looking for a job, he stops at a bar in a tiny town, where his simple, peaceful lifestyle is interrupted. Local hit men, expecting enemy assassin Azul (Reinol Martinez) to invade their town, believe that the visiting musician is the professional killer they are looking for. Unwittingly embroiled in vicious mob warfare, El Mariachi must shoot his way out of town if he is to survive.
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El Mariachi

El Mariachi

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Critics Consensus

Made on a shoestring budget, El Mariachi's story is not new. However, the movie has so much energy that it's thoroughly enjoyable.

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Critics Reviews

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Peter Stack San Francisco Chronicle By turns hilarious, soulful, gritty and sexy, this lively crime drama was created by 23-year-old director Robert Rodriguez of Austin, Texas, for a budget of 7,000. Rated: 4/4 Jan 11, 2023 Full Review Harper Barnes St. Louis Post-Dispatch El Mariachi makes the bloated movies of Steven Seagal and other American martial arts stars look as lazy and cluttered as the tag-team match at a tanktown wrestling arena. This movie means business. Sep 9, 2021 Full Review Jay Carr Boston Globe Although crude, it deftly balances kinetic action sequences with hip awareness, only occasionally succumbing to moves that seem self-conscious or affected. Sep 9, 2021 Full Review Emilie Black Cinema Crazed This $7,000 film is one that shows what passion and talent can do and how to bring a story to the screen properly with the right folks involved. Sep 14, 2024 Full Review Rob Gonsalves Rob's Movie Vault Some of the film is monotonous, but it’s so completely what it is — a shoot-’em-up done with throwaway energy — that you’d have to be fun-impaired not to enjoy it. Rated: B+ Aug 31, 2022 Full Review Philip French Observer (UK) The best movie in the section... [A] vigorous action movie. Sep 9, 2021 Full Review Read all reviews

Audience Reviews

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gerg rev g I finally got around to seeing the movie and it is very very very good 👍👍 Rated 5 out of 5 stars 08/17/24 Full Review Audience Member I’ve been meaning to watch this film for a long time, but when it left Pluto I ran out of options. Well it came back for this month only, and I knew I had to give it my time. Now that I’ve sat down and truly watched it I just got to say that was so much better than expected. It’s like a Leone Spaghetti Western, and a Blaxsploitation movie had an awesome baby. The unbelievably low budget allows for the creativity and passion to just ooze out of every corner of the film. This film proves how great of a director Robert Rodriguez really is, and was definitely worth the watch. Unfortunately I’m deducting a star because of my own fault, I don’t know Spanish and you can’t expect a dub to do a movie much justice. 4/5 stars, great film and was definitely worth every second of my time. Rated 4 out of 5 stars 08/07/24 Full Review Logan M A charming and energetic classic with a great view of the city where it was made and great action, made even more impressive by the film's mere 7,000 dollar budget. Rated 4 out of 5 stars 03/12/23 Full Review maggie p Great movie!!!! Great story, great cast, great everything! Rated 5 out of 5 stars 03/31/23 Full Review Audience Member He might be a big name in Hollywood today, but back in the early 90s, the then 23-year-old Robert Rodriguez made the film El Mariachi more or less on his own, with a paltry budget, and his career subsequently took off. I'd heard a lot of things about this movie, mostly about how it was constructed around the dearth of funds, and having seen it, I'm honestly surprised how well they did with so little. It doesn't tell the most original story or have the most fleshed out characters, but it takes what it has and does the best it can with it, giving us a movie which is both admirable and entertaining. I loved how the films 2 storylines kept crossing over in the smartest ways, and the action scenes, while stripped down for monetary reasons, are still pretty exciting, if you can get over the fact that the close-up style of directing effectively removes any sense of spatial geography. I had no idea where any characters were in relation to each other and its clear that, even when they're in a chase scene, the actors are passing by the same places over and over again. The ending is a bit anti-climactic, but since most of the budget would have been spent by then, I can understand why it turned out that way. Issues aside, El Mariachi is a damn good film that put a popular and influential filmmaker on the map, and shows that, when it comes to movies, if the story being told is compelling, everything else will fall into place. Rated 4 out of 5 stars 02/26/23 Full Review matthew d A fantastically stylish directorial debut from Robert Rodriguez! Director Robert Rodriguez' Spanish-language, indie, neo-Western El Mariachi (1992) is a thing of beauty. Made with the lowest budget you can imagine of around $7,000, Rodriguez milks every peso out of this little Mexican town. It's amazing that director Robert Rodriguez and lead actor Carlos Gallardo put up the money for El Mariachi as producers. It's hard to believe such a stylish film got made, let alone that this was Rodriguez' first feature film. El Mariachi is charming, funny, and exciting with a thrilling case of mistaken identity for his crime narrative with Western style. Guns blazing and casual jokes galore, El Mariachi shows what an innovative director can do with little to nothing for his production budget. Rodriguez' direction genuinely feels like an intense 90's action packed, crime thriller with a relaxing Western feel. You can tell how influenced by The Shaw Brothers' 70s films Rodriguez was, let alone Sergio Leone's legendary Westerns. You get 70s style dream sequences, brutal 80s style action shootouts, and pleasant 90s raw romance and humor from El Mariachi. Robert Rodriguez was El Mariachi's writer, editor, and cinematographer in addition to its director. Rodriguez' neat writing provides a simple crime story about a traveling musician mistaken for a killer crook out for blood. It's actually complex in how people keep getting mistaken for one another. I love the natural conversations, absurd jokes, tender romance, and creative crime narrative. Rodriguez was a crafty writer early on already. Robert Rodriguez' editing is very slick with mature cuts that a more experienced director would be making. His cuts to close-ups are always striking. I love how artful his edits are for El Mariachi. It's like Rodriguez was directing an art film as much as an exciting action picture. He cuts scenes with a deliberately slow burn pacing like old Westerns. El Mariachi is only 81 minutes and still moves along pretty quickly. I was certainly entertained by the fun character moments besides the cool violence. Robert Rodriguez' cinematography speaks for itself. His moving camera finds faces and blood splatter with equal beauty. He has a clear low budget as all Rodriguez could probably afford was handheld shooting, but El Mariachi looks great and has many fascinating shots all the same. Carlos Gallardo is charming, handsome, and hilarious as "El Mariachi." His hapless hero is funny, natural, and likable. I love Gallardo's smooth and soaring vocals during El Mariachi's lovely musical numbers. His Mariachi music is honestly my favorite aspect of El Mariachi, even more so than the bloody shootouts. He has intense romantic chemistry with the pretty and charming Consuelo Gómez as the kind bar owner Dominó. She's really funny and mesmerizing in El Mariachi. Peter Marquardt is great as the sleazy creep crime boss Mauricio known as "Moco." I loved the fat and intense Reinol Martínez as Azul. His action shootouts are so cool and he's got a funny sense of direct humor. Edith Gonzalez is very sexy as Moco's main girl Electra, especially in her purple bikini. It's fun that all the other supporting cast were all locals that Rodriguez used. Composers Eric Guthrie, Chris Knudson, Álvaro Rodríguez, Cecilio Rodríguez, and Mark Trujillo's score for El Mariachi. They have dramatic drums with eerie synth lines that I loved hearing. The dark synth melodies in the backdrop really give El Mariachi a heavy atmosphere. The pleasant Mariachi music is really wonderful and always fun to hear. In all, El Mariachi is well worth watching for fun characters and killer action sequences from budding filmmaker Robert Rodriguez. Rated 5 out of 5 stars 03/31/23 Full Review Read all reviews
El Mariachi

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Cast & Crew

El Mariachi

El Mariachi: Official Clip - Pronto, Azul El Mariachi: Official Clip - Pronto, Azul 3:11 El Mariachi: Official Clip - Looking for Work El Mariachi: Official Clip - Looking for Work 2:49 El Mariachi: Official Clip - They Were Thieves El Mariachi: Official Clip - They Were Thieves 2:10 El Mariachi: Official Clip - Sing or Die El Mariachi: Official Clip - Sing or Die 2:56 El Mariachi: Official Clip - Mistaken Identity El Mariachi: Official Clip - Mistaken Identity 3:05 El Mariachi: Official Clip - Calling Your Bluff El Mariachi: Official Clip - Calling Your Bluff 2:59 El Mariachi: Official Clip - The Wrong Case El Mariachi: Official Clip - The Wrong Case 2:57 El Mariachi: Official Clip - Mariachi Day El Mariachi: Official Clip - Mariachi Day 3:05 El Mariachi: Official Clip - No More Moco El Mariachi: Official Clip - No More Moco 2:57 El Mariachi: Official Clip - El Mariachi Sings El Mariachi: Official Clip - El Mariachi Sings 2:58 View more videos
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Movie Info

Synopsis El Mariachi (Carlos Gallardo) is a traveling guitar player with the modest desire to play music for a living. Looking for a job, he stops at a bar in a tiny town, where his simple, peaceful lifestyle is interrupted. Local hit men, expecting enemy assassin Azul (Reinol Martinez) to invade their town, believe that the visiting musician is the professional killer they are looking for. Unwittingly embroiled in vicious mob warfare, El Mariachi must shoot his way out of town if he is to survive.
Director
Robert Rodriguez
Producer
Carlos Gallardo, Robert Rodriguez
Screenwriter
Robert Rodriguez
Distributor
Columbia Pictures
Production Co
Columbia Pictures Corporation, Los Hooligans Productions
Rating
R (Stylized Violence)
Genre
Action
Original Language
Spanish
Release Date (Theaters)
Feb 26, 1993, Wide
Release Date (Streaming)
Apr 16, 2012
Box Office (Gross USA)
$1.6M
Runtime
1h 22m
Sound Mix
Surround, Dolby SR, Dolby A, Dolby Stereo
Aspect Ratio
Flat (1.85:1)
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