Robert Rodriguez has had a long and successful career as one of the most prolific directors working in the industry … which is why it feels silly to say that he should go back to his 1990s filmmaking roots. Yes, even though Rodriguez has made great strides in his craft over the years, these strides have ended up cutting out a lot of what made his movies so special in the first place. Movies like El Mariachi, From Dusk Till Dawn, and Desperado show that his films once had a raw, low-to-the-ground, almost homemade feel that set his work apart and put his contemporary filmmakers’ action movies to shame. Nowadays, Rodriguez is still exercising a similar means of resourcefulness, but he’s focusing his efforts in all the wrong places. So what exactly sets Rodriguez’s last 20 years apart from his first 10?
The El Mariachi director and one-time “Rebel Without a Crew” has lost his way a bit over the years.