Antonio Banderas is the titular Desperado out for revenge against the drug-lord responsible for the death of his girlfriend in Robert Rodriguez's semi-sequel, semi-remake of his debut El Mariachi (1992). Set in a Mexican town, this is a contemporary Western that combines elements familiar from classic Sam Peckinpah movies with the post-Reservoir Dogs school of film-making. With a threadbare story and unbelievable characters acting in unbelievable ways the result is a repulsively blood-soaked comic-book treatment, in which the best scenes are bar-stool monologues by... Steve Buscemi and Quentin Tarantino. The film also introduced Salma Hayek to English-speaking audiences. She's incandescently sensual here and survived a farcical rock-video-style sex scene to become a Rodriguez regular. On the DVD: Desperado is a Superbit DVD, meaning maximum disc space has been given to the film, with a data rate close to double that of a normal DVD, no extras and just a choice between Dolby Digital and DTS 5.1 soundtracks. The 1.78:1 anamorphically enhanced transfer is virtually flawless, with excellent detail, accurate colours and a refreshing absence of grain. The Dolby Digital soundtrack is very good and the DTS even better, though as this comparatively low-budget film was originally released in stereo it's not state-of-the-art even when remixed. Only those with high-end home cinema set-ups are likely to notice significant technical improvements over a standard DVD version. --Gary S. Dalkin [show more]
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