Robert Rodriguez's fun over everything ethos is on full display in Desperado's best action beat, the Tarasco Bar Shootout.
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In the film bromance of Robert Rodriguez and Quentin Tarantino, I see more of myself in Rodriguez. Part of it is because Tarantino can't shut up when he really should and ends up putting his foot in his mouth every other sentence from sheer carelessness. Another part of it is Tarantino's pretentiousness about his own work. He constantly talks about every single one of his movies as if they're unquestionable masterpieces and doesn't receive any semblance of criticism well. Whereas Rodriguez...seems to value the audience having fun above all else and loves doing all of the work that comes with making a movie including writing, composing music, directing, editing and even shooting his own movies. And that fun over everything ethos is on full display in Desperado's best action beat, the Tarasco Bar Shootout.
The Scene
After getting info from his buddy Buscemi (yes that's Steve Buscemi's actual character name and it's amazing) that the drug lord Bucho has underlings working at the Tarasco Bar, our hero El Mariachi travels to said bar to hopefully find Bucho and get his revenge. But when a search of El's guitar case, reveals that he's the man who killed their compatriots in another bar, a chaotic shootout up and down the bar begins.
Why It Works
Lead In
I've talked a lot about why anticipation for an action means, or the tension that arises before it, is so important. It means that action scenes can feel like a release lever for the tension before we start building it up again. One of the reasons this one works so well is because we get not one, but two primers.
The first is Buscemi's story that opens the movie. Said story is a mythical take on El Marichi's exploits at the last bar, that included a massive shootout that left everyone in attendance, minus Buscemi, dead. I really like this because we've just put this patron full of drug dealers on edge, while also giving the audience a taste of the action they're about to see later. And since we know El is about to come into this bar, we could be in for another bloodbath.
The second primer is how the drug dealers handle Quentin Tarantino and his presumably Mexican buddy. This beat is probably most famous for the joke Tarantino tells, but since it ends with Cheech Marin's bartender, coldly shooting a guy in the head who didn't clear, you also know these guys are ready to roll on anyone they see as a threat.
And then Antonio Banderas walks in with his guitar case and everyone is upset about it. So much so that they ask him what's in the case and demand to see inside. He obliges and it appears to be a guitar. And tension is down...but only for a moment, because the guitar is actually a false top that covers...all of the weapons El carries with him.
Now everyone surrounds El, who appears to be unarmed, since all his guns are in the case, as he begs them to back off and give him information. And just when they're about to sic themselves on El, he declares "No Yet" in a perfect Banderas delivery, and comes up guns blazing with two pistols ejected up his sleeves. Let the bullet hell begin!
Hilarious Chaos
I mentioned the story that Steve Buscemi tells at the beginning of the movie for a reason. Because that's the mythic image of El Mariachi that El wants to cultivate and has likely been going around since he started offing cartel members.
Everything in that scene is smooth, full of smoky shadows, and Antonio Banderas moving around like an invincible god of destruction.
This is not that.
This is El basically flailing around trying to survive and off everyone in the bar before they can kill him. He's unloading clips on single guys who into close quarters, crying out "Shit!" when he runs out of ammo, taunting dudes who shot at him and missed "You missed me!" He looks lucky, not good.
This is doubly obvious when he runs out of pistol ammo and him and the one remaining baddie begin to grab at different guns before his enemy finds one that actually has a clip and he decides bull rush him and snap his neck. Forget a god of destruction, this man is pure chaos.
The Cool S***
Another reason I love Robert Rodriguez is that he constantly puts physics and logic defying stuff in his movie...because he knows the image on screen work. And there's an awful lot of that here so I might as well just list them:
- El firing single shots in front of him and behind his back to take out dudes as he moves across the bar top (the absolute worst spot to be in a gun fight)
- El pushing a man off of him with both legs, sending the dude into the air before he unloads two clips into him
- The dual sleeve pistols holsters reveal is so cool, not just because someone finally pulled a cool version of Travis Bickle, but also because he looks so f***ed before that.
- El wrist snapping the pistols in tandem and then solo and still hitting these dudes somehow?
- El vaulting over Cheech to get out of the line of fire.
- The casual hair flip after a bullet hits right next to him on the bar.
- El spinning a guy right after all of the baddies reveal their guns from the under the table
- The unceremonious murder of Tarantino
- Power slides with dual-wielded pistols are always cool.
Using the Environment
As good as Rodriguez is at crafting "fun for fun's sake" moments in his action beats, he's also good at putting said scenes in unique locations. A bar isn't an unconventional spot for a quick draw beat or a fist fight, but a giant shootout is unique.
And the way this bar is constructed lends itself to some fun cat and mouse beats. Sometimes El is hiding underneath the bar, using it as cover, other times he's on top of it (as previously mentioned). And later him and seemingly the last man standing are trading shots from cover across the bar with no chance of hitting one another.
Hell, El even shoots down a fan to take down a particularly pesky goon. Just a great demonstration of how to give your scene variety by exploring the space.
And the way this bar is constructed lends itself to some fun cat and mouse beats. Sometimes El is hiding underneath the bar, using it as cover, other times he's on top of it (as previously mentioned). And later him and seemingly the last man standing are trading shots from cover across the bar with no chance of hitting one another.
Hell, El even shoots down a fan to take down a particularly pesky goon. Just a great demonstration of how to give your scene variety by exploring the space.
Conclusion: Chaotic, Silly, Bloody Fun
A lot of movie gunfights are great because they're paired with pant-crapping tension, slick editing, or an overwhelming hail of bullets. What makes this shootout so fun is almost the exact opposite. A completely lack of seriousness that means we the audience can turn off our brain and watch Antonio Banderas fulfill our wishes of being a legendary gunfighter...who's also lucky just to be alive.
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