SunnyHello Nice effects though.

Fairaher The film makes a home in your brain and the only cure is to see it again.

Marva It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

Abegail Noëlle While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

laduerfahrd Loved it. He started well. What happened? Does anyone have a hunch about why evertyhing went "down hill" after El Mariachi? The more money he got later on, the less edge his films had.

Smoreni Zmaj Robert Rodriguez' first movie, before he came to USA, and prequel to famous Desperado. Rodriguez had no team and he shot it on his own with just about 7.000 $ budget. Movie is in Spanish, there's no famous actors and most of the roles are played by local residents. It was shot as silent film and dialogues and sound are added afterwards. Rodriguez wrote the script, gathered volunteers for roles, directed, recorded sound, did editing and everything that goes with it on his own. Something like Chaplin was doing in his time, one man show. Story is good, movie is mediocre, but considering how it's done this is amazing achievement. Then Rodriguez went to America and made other two parts of Mexico trilogy, Desperado and Once Upon a Time in Mexico.I rated this movie 5/10 before I knew background story, but it's 10/10 for effort. It definitely is worth watching.

Lechuguilla A simple story about mistaken identities and lost idealism, "El Mariachi" gets high marks from me for its authentic visuals and absence of big-name movie stars. The film was shot in a real town on the Mexican border, enhancing realism. There are lots of hand-held camera shots, fast cutting, and pleasant lack of CGI. Images look grainy, possibly intentionally so. When the movie was made, none of the actors were well known. As a result, you see characters, not actors playing script roles. Despite the lack of professional actors, overall acting quality is fine.Ambient sounds are amplified, probably for dramatic effect. I really like the guitar score; it's appropriate for the Mexican setting, and it's slightly mysterious. Effective editing masks minor mistakes, such as mismatched lighting and poor lip-sync.The main weakness is the script, originally only 40 pages in length. A guitar-playing musician comes to town looking for work. Unbeknownst to him, a man wearing similar clothes and also carrying a guitar case is involved with a drug kingpin.Except for some violence at times, the story itself is fairly low-key; gore is minimal, thankfully. Though the story could be construed as serious, the tone is decidedly tongue-in-cheek.This film is a pleasant change from splashy, over-hyped, big-budget Hollywood productions that cost millions of dollars. Though I found the story a bit boring and contrived, the overall production offset the script's weaknesses. "El Mariachi" is a good film to watch at least once for its authentic visuals and its ability to convey a credible story at a very low budget.

callanvass (Credit IMDb) El Mariachi just wants to play his guitar and carry on the family tradition. Unfortunately, the town he tries to find work in has another visitor...a killer who carries his guns in a guitar case. The drug lord and his henchmen mistake El Mariachi for the killer, Azul, and chase him around town trying to kill him and get his guitar case.Boring, low-budget, and poorly acted came to mind while I was viewing this movie. Yes. I mentioned the word overrated with this infamous Robert Rodriguez trilogy, but I did enjoy Desperado to some extents. I can see why people love this movie. It has a sense of style; they did what they could with the budget they had, but for this to have 7.0 rating baffles and befuddles me to the extreme.The Acting Carlos Gallardo is OK as Mariachi, but he doesn't have the presence of Banderas, and I didn't feel the qualities needed for him to help make this movie successful.Bottom line. I'll be honest with you. I watched this one over a month ago, and I'm struggling to remember things about it. Probably tells you the impact it had on me. Perhaps this one is for you, it clearly wasn't for me.3/10