Once Upon Many Times In Mexico

"You will never find a more wretched hive of scum and villainy." ~ Obi Wan, Star Wars

“I’m hungry. Let’s get a taco.” ~ Mr.White, Reservoir Dogs

Movies, like real estate, are all about location.

As the backdrop of an unfolding story, a carefully chosen location can lend a texture woven over the entire history of filmmaking.

A movie set in outer space warns of chilling solitude and vulnerability. A movie set in the depths of a remote jungle is immediately shrouded in mystery and the promise of hidden dangers and lost treasures. A movie set in New York instantly benefits from the precedent that anything and everything can happen in the city that never sleeps – from Empire State building romance to Stay Puft Marshmallow Man rampage.

But often when Hollywood filmmakers need to retreat their heroes to an even less hospitable locale, they can always turn to their conveniently located neighbor Mexico for a very dusty assortment of hope, despair, and a never-ending supply of tacos.

Mexico Is A Lot Like Outer Space, But Not As Busy

At this very moment, as you sit and read the hastily crafted sentences I’ve left here for you, there’s absolutely nothing going on in Mexico. There are no jobs, no hobbies, and no industry. Mexicans have nowhere to go, and no where to be, so they walk very very slow to make sure they never arrive anywhere at any time. Some Mexicans are moving so slow, their watches (if they had such technology) would be ticking backwards.

To stage an action movie or a suspense thriller in Mexico, or any movie of any kind with a glimmer of plot, is akin to setting off fireworks in a daycare during naptime. Take the movie The Mexican, for example. There’s nothing going on in Mexico, and then all of a sudden Brad Pitt and Julia Roberts are raging around shouting at each other. The contrast to everyday life is startling!

Just jumping up and down would be shirking the norm, but rushing around with intent and purpose? It catapults Traffic into the realm of Oscar-caliber drama!

Mexico Is Unclean, And Therefore Dangerous

Mexico is easily the dirtiest place on earth. I’m not talking Christina Aguliera dirty, either. Dirtier than that. And that’s already like dirty dirt on a clump of dirt, rolled in mud, spat on, and festering in the feces of a diseased mule.

Dirt equals danger on the most base level of civilized, rational thought. In Desperado, when Antonio Banderas steps and spins along the bar shooting banditos, we aren’t scared that he might take a bullet and die. We’re scared that he’ll take a bullet and have to go to a Mexican hospital where they’d no doubt jab El Mariachi with an unsterilized needle and put him on a slow tequila drip, before carving into the entry wound with a rusty old scalpel, and stuffing his wound with ground beef to stop the bleeding.

The upside? All the taco-flavored Jello he can eat before dying on the operating table.

No One Should Go To Mexico, So It’s The Perfect Place To Hide

In the old westerns, Mexico was a supposed safe haven for outlaws and wanted men. You can see the appeal… stay in Missouri and get your guts shot out at high noon, or retire to a vacation home in the south where hopefully the rumors of cheap beer, beautiful women, and three burritos a day actually exist. I’ve never had my guts shot out, but I think the smart cowboy would start riding south immediately.

Just don’t take the mythical Mexican Blackbird trail to get there. In Young Guns 2, that tricky lawyer from The Mighty Ducks spent a whole hour fooling Jack Bauer and Ritchie Valens into thinking they were on their way to old Mexico to avoid a posse of lawmen. But everyone knows that lawyers lie, and there was no such trail, and they just ended up riding in circles. And when they’d stop to camp Valens would play a sad version of La Bamba on his guitar while Jack Bauer would try to get reception on his cellphone to request a helicopter extraction (the following takes place between 6pm and 7pm, Mexican Standard Time), and the lawyer would amuse himself with target practice to maintain his billable hours.

And then much later, the movie ends in Mexico with tears and a spilled bowl of shredded cheese and lettuce on a bloodstained floor.

Actually, that’s how all movies set in Mexico end. Sometimes there is dancing.