Rating: C
Dir: Robert Rodriguez
Star: Roby Attal, Eman Esfandi, Lauren Hatfield, Steve Brudniak
For the 25th anniversary of the famously cheap El Mariachi, Rodriguez decided to make a movie under the same limitations, “to show you can make a $7,000 feature length film today with no crew.” Of course, it’s a cheat. In the accompanying docuseries about its creation, Rebel Without a Crew, Rodriguez admits, “We’ll be shooting the entire film in the offices and hallways of Troublemaker Studios… using mostly props, wardrobe, and set pieces that I’ve saved from many of my past films.” Because, of course, it’s a slight help to have your own studio, and a quarter-century’s worth of accumulated production value. Though I did like the series, which shows Rodriguez honoring the spirit of El Mariachi, if not the letter.
Indeed, I’d recommend it over the finished product. Not so much because Red 11 looks cheap: it doesn’t, to the point that you rarely think about any resource limitations. Another thing Robert said was, “You always write around what you have,” and that aspect is nailed here. However, it’s still not a very good script, which ends up twisting itself into knots by trying to add too much. I did like how it took from Rodriguez’s own experience: he became a medical test subject to raise money for his movie-making. Here, Rob (Attal) does it, because a failed film project has left him in debt to some very unpleasant people, led by Camacho (Carlos Gallardo, who was the villain in Mariachi).
In the facility, the test subjects are grouped by shirt colour, and identified by number – hence, Rob becomes Red 11. It’s supposed to be a test of a speed healing drug, but the longer he goes, the murkier things get, and the side-effects of the drugs he is being given, cause his grip on reality to loosen (top). It’s increasingly clear various other people in there – both staff and patients – have other agendas. Some of the programs appear to be intended to awaken latent psychic abilities, and that might not be the weirdest one taking place. In particular, what about the solitary guy dressed in black? [He’s played by Robert’s son, Racer, who was also the solitary dedicated crew member during the fourteen-day shoot]
I felt the problem was, the twistier things became, the less involved I got. The simple idea of needing to pay off a debt to the Mexican cartel through dubious medical testing would have been fine. Every level added beyond that felt increasingly fantastical and implausible, distancing me from Rob and his predicament. I suspect the intent was for the hero to fall down a rabbit-hole of ever-increasing weirdness. He does: the problem is, the film wasn’t able to take the audience with him. It may have been things like the breaks from reality, which meant I could never be certain thereafter, if what I was seeing was actually occurring. I appreciated the almost Dogme 95 approach of artificially restricted cinema. The execution leaves a bit to be desired, however.