Mario Almada Movies
- 1987
In Central America, the peasants are nearly all "Indios," or people whose cultural values are those of indigenous people (rather than European or Spanish). Since the landowning and propertied classes abuse them horribly, these same ruling-class types live in perpetual fear of a bloody uprising. As a result, they suppress and abuse the peasants even more. Ironically, for the most part these peaceable people only want to be left alone. Those who do want to foment revolution have virtually no weapons and few allies to help them. In this action/adventure movie, based on a true incident, a group of Guatemalan peasants who have sought refuge in Mexico are sought out by Guatemalan death squads, and those who aren't tortured and killed are taken away in captivity. The hero in the story is a Mexican hunter whose family is mistakenly included in the raid and who teams up with a few of the survivors to win his family back and take revenge. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Mario Almada, Gilberto Trujillo, (more)
- 1987
In action-drama, three brothers smuggle narcotics and explosives. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1987
The mere fact of a marijuana plantation in the Mexican state of Chihuahua might not be enough to upset many, and many factors contribute to escalating lawlessness of the gangsters who cultivate and sell the drug. The plantation in question was much too large for the Mexican authorities to ignore even if they wanted to, and in 1984 it was raided. What they discovered there was much more chilling than fields of the illegal herb and a bunch of gangsters: nearly five thousand poor persons worked there as slave laborers, after having been lured to the plantation with promises of high wages for picking apples. This is one of two docudramas which were made about the incident. The story concerns a man whose efforts to support his family through working illegally in the U.S. were thwarted by thieves who stole his mail. When he discovers this after being deported, he responds to the promise of high wages for apple-picking and winds up being a slave laborer. In addition to the dramatic reenactment of events, this docudrama also includes footage of the actual raid on the plantation and interviews with survivors, which the actors then comment on. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Mario Almada, Narciso Busquets, (more)
- 1987
In this drama, a doctor helps wounded rebels. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1987
All in one majestic sweep of bad luck, Valentin lost a horse race he was riding in and was arrested on a trumped-up charge for murdering his best friend. He survives quite a few years in prison, and returns to his hometown to ride again. His successes on the race track mirror his restoration to favor within the community. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Valentin Trujillo, Mario Almada, (more)
- 1987
It sounds like a sports video, but Emilio Varela vs. Camelia La Texana is actually a Mexican crime flick. The title characters are a couple of criminals. When one announces his intention to reform, the other is sore and annoyed. The rest of the film charts the decline and fall of a beautiful friendship. Maria Almada, Jorge Russek and Silvia Maniquez head the cast. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Mario Almada, Silvia Manriquez, (more)
- 1987
Sheriff Frederick Jackson (Eric del Castillo) seeks an operation to separate his Siamese twin boys in this symbolic and unusual western. Luis Mario Quiroz plays Fred and Erick, who are allowed to reach childhood before undergoing the operation. Erick dies and inhabits Fred's body, and the soul of the departed brother seeks vengeance against those who led to his death. Dr. Jack Miller (Mario Almada) and the local judge (Alfredo Gutierrez) are targeted for retribution along with the boy's father. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Erick del Castillo, Mario Almada, (more)
- 1987
The love of a woman for a gambler helps him to meet his deceitful rival. ~ All Movie Guide
While he may not be a super-hero with magical powers, Valente has a way with arrows, knives, darts, pistols and various other mayhem-inducing hardware, as he secretly pursues (and kills) a variety of bad guys while protecting his reporter girlfriend in Los Angeles, California. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Valentin Trujillo, Patricia Maria, (more)
This routine disaster melodrama is based on the actual earthquake that occurred in Mexico City on September 19th, 1985. Paty (Diana Golden) is an unwed expectant mother who has been discarded by her idiotic boyfriend Miguel (Miguel Angel Rodriguez). She is taken to the hospital just before the calamity, which causes the shaken shirker Miguel to realize he does love Paty after all. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Miguel Ángel Rodríguez, Mario Almada, (more)
An honest lawman declares war on dirty dealings in this action thriller from Mexico. Santa Cruz (Mario Almada) is a police detective who has been struggling against growing corruption within his department. He reaches his boiling point when he learns one of his own men on the force has betrayed him. A new police chief (Sergio Goyri) is brought in to ferret out dirty cops and end the abuse of prisoners, but it soon becomes clear that his efforts don't go far enough to please Santa Cruz, who takes matters into his own hands. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
This fast-paced tale of a bloody feud between two families is compelling in its action and characters. Julian Carrera (Valentin Trujillo, also the director) and his brother run an auto repair shop, both are well-adjusted and normal young men. One day their beloved father is robbed and murdered. Julian vows revenge on his killers, and a vendetta is set in motion. The first act of violence begets another and starts a flow of blood. Along the way, friends and female relationships, as well as music, add needed dimensions to the story. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Valentin Trujillo, Mario Almada, (more)
Police Captain Balbuena (Mario Almada) is taken off the case when he uncovers police involvement with notorious drug smugglers in this action drama. When he loses his job, Balbuena gathers a group of outlaws to go after the gangsters. El Loco Ordonez (Jorge Luke) is recruited to lead the vigilantes after the captain and his family are gunned down. The feature contains effective slices of comedy and violence and is a good action programmer. ~ Dan Pavlides, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Mario Almada, Hugo Stiglitz, (more)
- 1985
Alfredo Gurrola's 1985 Spanish-language thriller El Rojo's Escape (La Fuga del Rojo) concerns the title character (Mario Almada), a rogue mercenary approached by a group of fighters in desperate need of guns and ammunition. The men enlist El Rojo's services, and he undertakes a dangerous mission smuggling arms across the border - for a price. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Mario Almada, Carmen del Valle, (more)
Escape Sangriento concerns an unjustly incarcerated man named Pedro Montes (Mario Almada). Filled with a desire to settle the score, Montes enlists the help of other inmates in order to succeed in a complicated prison break. Once on the outside, Montes must figure out who set him up to take the fall for his wife's murder. ~ Perry Seibert, All Movie Guide
- 1985
In a bloody version of Wyatt Earp's shootout at the OK Corral, escalated several times over, this story substitutes a motorcycle gang for the outlaws, and the "Law" is represented not by a U.S. Marshal, but by two antagonistic men. Sheriff Ventura (Mario Almada) counsels his deputy Yunke (Javier Garcia) to ignore the motorcycle gang that just roared into town, because they are only going to shortly roar out of town on their own. Yunke ignores this advice, kills a gang member, and then frames a local citizen for the crime. This sets off a minor war, as the motorcyclists capture a school and a poolhall, and to make matters worse, they kill the young son of one of the town's policemen when the boy tries to escape from the school. What follows is a final and bloody showdown in which Sheriff Ventura and the gang's leader Vikingo (Jorge Reynoso) duel it out to the death.
~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Mario Almada, Jorge Reynoso, (more)
This tortilla Western has a story based on the lyrics of a ballad, and stars Fernando Almada as Jesus Coronado and Mario Almada as Demetrio Coronado, two brothers in real life who make approximately eight of these films a year. This time Jesus has just served a 10-year prison sentence, is minus a leg, and as he returns home with a new model horse and gun, flashbacks bring the story up to date. Demetrio and Jesus had to defend their property against villains who not only wanted the hacienda but also wanted the woman Jesus planned to marry. Mineral deposits on the land raise the greed level of the desperadoes to an unbearable intensity, and they attack, strewing corpses right and left until only the wounded Jesus remains to face a prison sentence. Along the way to this mayhem and Jesus' revenge, there are an inordinate number of songs performed by Tex-Mex groups like Los Cadetes de Linares. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Mario Almada, Isaura Espinoza, (more)
- 1984
A young boy witnesses his father's murder by a man wearing a distinctive ring. Now a man, he begins searching for the killer. ~ All Movie Guide
In a rather far-fetched action thriller about horse thieving, an otherwise upright rancher is blackmailed into stealing a pricey, champion racehorse that some gangsters want for their own stables. The two gang leaders, Bruno (Toño Infante) and Killer (Rubén Recio) connive to enlist a commando from the Korean War named Felipe (Mario Almada) to carry out the theft of the racehorse Excaliber, soon to run at the Tijuana track for the first time. They dispatch the evil Osaka to twist Felipe's arm, which he successfully does by kidnapping Felipe's son and then beating his ranchhand nearly to death, blowing off his leg for good measure. Thus coerced, Felipe looks up an old army buddy and with some of the money that Osaka left in payment for the deed, Felipe covers the cost of his friend's help. Next, another vet from the Korean War is recruited as a helicopter pilot and the three begin to rehearse the planned horse-napping. Their objective is to pick up the horse by helicopter in mid-race, and to ensure the success of that imaginative heist, Osaka kidnaps the jockey's wife to force his cooperation. When the big day comes, the horse caper is successful -- with a few glitches here and there -- yet Felipe is a long way from getting his son back safely and at the same time, escaping arrest. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Mario Almada, Rosenda Bernal, (more)
- 1984
A Southwestern lawman must prevent his deranged brother from becoming a killer. ~ John Bush, All Movie Guide
This feature from Spain follows an orphan who's made to impersonate the missing son of his father figure's landlord in order for the two to escape eviction. ~ Jeremy Wheeler, All Movie Guide
