Danny Trejo Movies
With his intimidating, tattooed, muscle-bound appearance, character actor Danny Trejo has formed a successful career as the all-purpose hard case over his curious and enduring cinematic career. Beating the odds of repeat offender syndrome after being released from prison, Trejo has risen through the ranks to find himself in high demand as an actor, and has even expanded his talents to include a producer credit to his resumé. His life story is just about as pristine an example of rehabilitation as one could ask for.Raised in the mean streets of East L.A., Trejo spent many of his early years incarcerated in such legendary prisons as Folsom and San Quentin on drug and robbery convictions. Channeling his intense energy into the boxing ring and winning numerous lightweight and welterweight titles, Trejo was released as a new man after completing a life-changing 12-step rehabilitation program to overcome his addictions. Applying the ideas that changed his life in an attempt to help others headed down a similar path, upon release Trejo became involved with numerous rehabilitation and counseling programs. A chance meeting with a young man who asked for his support at a Cocaine Anonymous meeting in 1985 later found the sympathetic ex-con meeting the struggling addict on the set of Runaway Train, and Trejo was quickly offered a role as a convict presumably based on his threatening appearance. Chance piled upon chance found an old prison buddy/screenwriter who remembered Trejo's hard-hitting boxing skills on the same set, and Trejo was then offered a chance to train Eric Roberts for a film, and was eventually offered the role as his opponent in the ring. Following with roles in The Hidden (1987), and later Lock-Up (1989), Marked for Death (1990), Mi Vida Loca (1993), and Heat (1995), Trejo formed an alliance with director Robert Rodriguez with Desperado in 1995, and soon graduated to such bigger-budget films as Con Air (1997) and The Replacement Killers (1998) in the latter 1990s. The Rodriguez-Trejo twosome found the actor taking on the role of Uncle Isadore "Machete" Cortez in the director's 2001 smash hit Spy Kids, and was later cast in both the film's sequel and Rodriguez's Once Upon a Time in Mexico (2002). ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
Steven Widi Ho directed this drama about sound mixer Igby Walters (Wayne Pere), who's working on a western-style Hamlet titled Dead Cowboys. After Igby encounters young violinist Juliet (Eliane Chappuis), he attempts to score with a promise of film score work. Can he deliver on this promise? Shown in competition at the 1998 Montreal World Film Festival. ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Wayne Pere, Eliane Chappuis, (more)
Mickey Rourke, Frederick Forrest and Danny Trejo star in this action-packed drama about a gang of psychotic criminals who have taken control of a Texas shopping mall. Only one misfit cop is brave enough to go in and face the maniacs -- because he's looking for his brother, who lives on the other side of the law. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
Former war hero Cameron Poe (Nicolas Cage) is sentenced to eight years in prison when he accidentally kills a man in a barroom brawl while defending his pregnant wife. When his release comes through, he's eager to see the daughter he's never met. However, Poe's original flight is delayed, so he's put aboard a flight transporting ten of the most dangerous men in the American penal system to a new high-security facility. One of the criminals, Cyrus "The Virus" Grissom (John Malkovich), is a serial killer and insane genius who has hatched a diabolical plot: with the help of several other hoods, including Diamond Dog (Ving Rhames), Johnny 23 (Daniel Trejo), and Garland Greene (Steve Buscemi), Cyrus and his men will hijack the plane and fly to a neutral nation where they can live as free men. Poe finds himself stuck in the middle; he has to find a way to get home, keep himself alive, look after his cellmate Baby-O (Mykelti Williamson), who will die without proper medicine, and try to help the cops on the ground, including agent Vince Larkin (John Cusack). Producer Jerry Bruckheimer's first film after the death of his partner Don Simpson, Con Air shows he learned well how to assemble the formula all by himself, with plenty of action, stunts, and special effects and not a lot of story to get in the way. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Nicolas Cage, John Cusack, (more)
A group of filmmakers looking for a lost native tribe instead find a man-eating monster in this thriller. Terri Flores (Jennifer Lopez) is a documentary filmmaker on assignment to make a film about the Shirishama Indians of the Amazon, a mysterious tribe known as "the People of the Mists." As Terri and her crew -- cameraman Danny Rich (Ice Cube), sound recordist Gary Dixon (Owen Wilson), anthropologist Steve Cale (Eric Stoltz), production manager Denise Kahlberg (Kari Wuhrer), and host Warren Westridge (Jonathan Hyde) -- head down the river, they discover a man whose boat has sunk and desperately needs rescue. Paul Sarone (Jon Voight), the mysterious stranger that they save from the waters, claims to know something of the Shirishama and says he will take the crew to them. Instead, he guides the group to the hiding place of the fearsome Anaconda, a gigantic snake that swallows a man whole, vomits him up, and eats him again (no small accomplishment, that). The snake is worth a fortune if captured, but can a creature so dangerous be captured at all? ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jennifer Lopez, Ice Cube, (more)
- 1997
A condemned man's benevolent act turns out to be a desperate bid for freedom in this action thriller. Rudy Salazar (Danny Trejo) is a multiple murderer who has been sentenced to death, but an unexpected act of generosity takes him off death row. Rudy's bone marrow type matches that of a young girl suffering from a rare form of leukemia; he volunteers to donate his marrow for the girl's treatment in exchange for having his sentence reduced to life without parole. The courts agree, but Thomas Quinlan (C. Thomas Howell), the detective who cracked the Salazar case and put him behind bars, is convinced something is afoot. Sadly, Quinlan turns out to be right; as Salazar is being transported to the hospital for the marrow donation, he puts into motion a carefully organized escape plan, and soon the murderer is back on the street, with a number of dead police officers left in his wake. Now Quinlan and his partner Lydia (Sofia Shinas) have to capture Salazar for the safety of the public, as well as giving a little girl her last chance at survival. Dilemma marked the feature debut for director Eric Larsen. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- 1997
- R
Mario Van Peebles wrote, produced, and starred in this follow-up to his 1993 Western Posse. Chance (Van Peebles) is a cavalry scout in the old west who accidentally gives his battalion wrong directions going into a battle. Not being a forgiving bunch, the soldiers beat Chance, tar and feather him, and leave him to die in the desert. However, Chance is found by Buck (Paul Lazar), who asks him if he's the young god Icarus, who fell to Earth after flying too close to the sun. It seems that Buck is an inmate at an insane asylum that's part of a nearby convent; Chance is brought back to the convent, where the nuns nurse him back to health. Chance learns that the Mother Superior (Jean Speegle Howard) is in poor health, and she asks Chance to lead the nuns and their charges to a safer mission 100 miles across the arid plains. Mother Superior dies only a few hours later, and the cruel Sister Drexel (Rusty Schwimmer) takes charge of the flock. Not eager to take her abuse, Chance goes his own way, but when he encounters the disturbed men of the convent, led by the self-proclaimed President (Rene Auberjonois), he realizes that he must help them if they are to survive. Los Locos was also distributed as Los Locos: Posse Rides Again, though while both are set in the old West and star Mario Van Peebles, he does not play the same character and the two films have no narrative connection. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Mario Van Peebles, Melora Walters, (more)
William Rockman retires from the illegal sport of extreme fighting while he's still at the top of his game. But when he discovers his brother has followed in his footsteps and lost his life in the ring, William must stage a comeback to avenge his brother's death. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Louis Mandylor, Danny Trejo, (more)
In this fast-paced French comedy, a gambler, anxious to escape the thugs who pursue him after her reneged on a bet, mistakenly agrees to enter the safety of the Amazon jungle with an ethnologist's son to search for the missing soul of an ailing Indian. Perrin's ordeal begins in an elevator where he encounters Campana, the French scientist who was raised in the distant jungle, and his companion Wanu, an Amazon shaman who has left his remote home to help Campana campaign on the rain forest's behalf. When Wanu, wearing little more than feathers, skins and a plate in his lip, suddenly tweak's the nose of Perrin and proclaims him the "chosen one," Perrin is naturally surprised. He is more surprised when Wanu shows up in his lavish apartment that night, drugs him and covers him with ritual markings thereby creating a magical link between them. The next day Wanu suffers a heart attack that he interprets as the theft of his soul. He beckons Perrin beside him and insists that he go to the jungle and find his soul, which has taken the form of a jaguar. Unfortunately for Perrin, the dense jungle proves to be far more dangerous than any gambler's henchmen and comical chaos ensues as he struggles to survive. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jean Reno, Patrick Bruel, (more)
In this action-horror flick from director Robert Rodriguez and screenwriter Quentin Tarantino, Tarantino stars with George Clooney as a pair of bad-to-the-bone brothers named Seth and Richie Gecko. After a string of robberies that left a river of blood in the Geckos' wake, the sadistic siblings head to Mexico to live the good life. To get over the border, they kidnap Jacob Fuller, a widowed preacher played by Harvey Keitel, and his two children, Kate (Juliette Lewis) and Scott (Ernest Liu). Once south of the border, the quintet park their RV at a rough-and-tumble trucker bar called The Titty Twister, where Seth and Richie are supposed to meet a local thug. After a couple of drinks, they realize that they're not in a typical bar, as the entire place begins to teem with vicious, blood-sucking vampires. With the odds stacked greatly against them, the Fullers and Geckos team together in hopes of defeating the creatures of the night. Makeup artist Tom Savini and blaxploitation star Fred Williamson appear as allies against the vampires, and Cheech Marin fills three different roles. ~ Matthew Tobey, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- George Clooney, Harvey Keitel, (more)
- 1996
An obnoxious agent from a Federal anti-drug unit makes a fatal error when following up on an informant's tip about a group of drug dealers who killed a girl during a shoot-out. Sipowicz (Dennis Franz), Simone (Jimmy Smits), and Diane (Kim Delaney) all have ample reason to be maddened by the developments in this case. And Martinez (Nicholas Turturro) and Medavoy (Gordon Clapp) take a crash course in "white magic" to solve a murder. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
A successful career criminal considers getting out of the business after one last score, while an obsessive cop desperately tries to put him behind bars in this intelligent thriller written and directed by Michael Mann. Neil McCauley (Robert De Niro) is a thief who specializes in big, risky jobs, such as banks and armored cars. He's very good at what he does; he's bright, methodical, and has honed his skills as a thief at the expense of his personal life, vowing never to get involved in a relationship from which he couldn't walk away in 30 seconds. Vincent Hanna (Al Pacino) is an L.A.P.D. detective determined to catch McCauley, but while McCauley's personal code has forced him to do without a wife and children, Hanna's dedication has made a wreck of the home he's tried to have; he's been divorced twice, he's all but a stranger to his third wife, and he has no idea how to reach out to his troubled step-daughter. While McCauley has enough money to retire and is planning to move to New Zealand, he loves the thrill of robbery as much as the profit, and is blocking out plans for one more job; meanwhile, he's met a woman, Eady (Amy Brenneman), whom he's not so sure he can walk away from. The supporting cast includes Val Kilmer as Chris, one of McCauley's partners; Ashley Judd as his wife Charlene; Jon Voight as Nate; Hank Azaria as Alan Marciano; and Henry Rollins as Hugh, who is beaten up by Hanna. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Al Pacino, Robert De Niro, (more)
Director Robert Rodriguez picks up where his successful independent debut El Mariachi left off with this slam-bang South of the Border action saga. Bucho (Joaquim DeAlmeida) is a wealthy but casually bloodthirsty drug kingpin who rules a seedy Mexican border town. Bucho and his men make the mistake of angering El Mariachi (Antonio Banderas), a former musician who now carries an arsenal in his guitar case. Bucho was responsible for the death of El Mariachi's girlfriend and put a bullet through his fretting hand, making him unable to play the guitar. Bent on revenge, the musician-turned-killing machine arrives in town to put Bucho out of business, though he finds few allies except for Carolina (Salma Hayek), who runs a bookstore that doesn't seem to attract many readers. Desperado features supporting performances from Cheech Marin as a cynical bartender, Steve Buscemi as the cantina patron who sets up the story, and Quentin Tarantino as a man with a really terrible joke to tell. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Antonio Banderas, Salma Hayek, (more)
Taylor Hackford directed this urgent melodrama about the realities of street crime, gangs, and prison life among the Chicanos of East Los Angeles. Miklo (Damian Chapa), Paco (Benjamin Bratt) and Cruz (Jesse Borrego) are three friends who are living in the East Los Angeles of 1972 as it is torn apart by violence. When the gang violence hits the three friends, they are affected by their participation in the bitter violence in different ways. Cruz, an artist, becomes crippled, and he sinks deeply into drug addiction. Paco, an accessory to murder, joins the military to avoid jail time, leading to a spot on the LAPD. Miklo, the kid with the gun, is sent to jail, where he slowly rises up in the ranks of La Onda, the San Quentin Latino gang. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Damian Chapa, Jesse Borrego, (more)
- 1993
Poor Maddalena (Sophia Diaz). She's so beautiful and sexy that men in her native Italy could not stop trying to romance her. She could have gone to a convent and she would have had trouble with the priests. There was no place that she could think of that she wouldn't be constantly subject to sexual and romantic demands by men. At some point, though, she remembered what she had heard about the stodginess, even the natural puritanism of the British. And British men are famous for their lack of sexual prowess. In this British-made comedy (penned by the very witty Simon Gray), Maddalena has moved to the British countryside and married a perfectly pleasant British man. Unfortunately, instead of inspiring lust in her new homeland, her great beauty inspires cardiac arrest in those who inopportunely view too much of it on the not infrequent occasions when her breasts break free of their moorings. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Simon Callow, Donald Pleasence, (more)
Kiefer Sutherland directed and stars in this death-row drama, playing an inmate who forms a complex relationship with a guard (Forest Whitaker). ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Kiefer Sutherland, Forest Whitaker, (more)
Neighborhood pride runs deep in Echo Park, so when two lifelong friends join the local gang as a matter of course, they're handed down gang names from the previous generation of homegirls. Unfortunately, Sad Girl (Angel Aviles) and Mousie (Seidy Lopez) don't remain friends for long. When Mousie withdraws into herself to cope with the responsibilities of young motherhood after bearing the child of her one true love, Ernesto (Jacob Vargas), Sad Girl and Ernesto turn to each other for comfort. Soon, Sad Girl herself ends up pregnant, and warm sisterhood cools to an icy feud. Ernesto starts dealing drugs to support his two young families -- and to outfit the gussied-up low rider that he hides from both of his unsuspecting girlfriends. The economic and romantic entanglements of these three characters serve as the entry point into this multifaceted exploration of L.A. street life, but Mi Vida Loca rapidly expands in scope to take in other characters, most of them female. Bleach-blond Whisper (Nelida Lopez), for instance, learns the drug-dealing ropes from Ernesto and considers crossing gender lines to open her own operation. The slightly older Giggles (Marlo Marron), however, refuses to fall into old dependencies and habits after being imprisoned for four years for a crime her boyfriend committed. Sad Girl's sister, La Blue Eyes (Magali Alvarado), the only character to choose college over gang life, chances upon a poem written by a prison inmate and becomes hopelessly smitten, abandoning her books for a passionate jailhouse correspondence. The focus of Mi Vida Loca shifts freely between these and several other characters, many of whom take turns providing narration and context. The director's daughter, Tiffany Anders, has a small role in the film alongside many real-life Echo Park denizens; several musicians and film directors also make cameos, among them Spike Jonze, Kurt Voss, Kid Frost, and the members of Los Lobos. Salma Hayek got her SAG card by playing a tiny role. ~ Brian J. Dillard, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Angel Aviles, Seidy Lopez, (more)
Based on a story by Richard Lupoff (a short filmization of the same story earned an Oscar nomination for 1990), 12:01 centers on a member of the personnel department in a science lab, who discovers that the world has become somehow trapped in a strange time warp that causes the same 24-hour period to repeat itself. During the course of that endlessly repeated day, Barry Thomas, the only one who seems to be aware of what's happening, must somehow figure out how to put time back on its normal course and solve the murder of a physicist, Lisa Fredricks (Helen Slater) with whom he is infatuated. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
Sunset Grill directed by Kevin Connor is a suspenseful, well-written and acted contemporary film noir with an idiosyncratic look at life on the wild side. Ryder Hart (Peter Weller) is a burnt-out former L.A. private detective who hears about the murder of a trafficker in illegal aliens, but who does not get involved until his wife is murdered. Investigating the murder, Ryder meets tycoon Shelgrave (Stacy Keach), who collects Mayan art, and his seductive assistant Loren (Lori Singer). The rather complicated plot includes double-crosses, possible murders of illegal aliens to sell their organs, and it culminates in a bloody shootout. Director Conner deftly ties up all the loose ends of the plot and gives them an internal consistency, as one incident leads to and explains another, creating a portrait of a complex, anti-hero, whose pain is explained but not sentimentalized. The plot is over-complicated, and the supporting cast contains more lunatics than most asylums, however Sunset Grill delivers what it promises: complex, contemporary mystery at its very best. ~ Linda Rasmussen, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Peter Weller, Lori Singer, (more)
- 1992
Maniacal Dennis Hopper plays a high-strung L.A. homicide detective who embarks upon a vengeful hunt for the drug pushers who brutally murdered his partners. His investigation soon reveals that the dealers' influence extends to the highest echelons of city government. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 1991
Based on the true-life adventures of the late Drug Enforcement Agency spy Barry Seal, this exciting espionage adventure chronicles the events that lead up to his death in 1984. Before coming to work for the DEA, smooth-talking Seal (Dennis Hopper) had been a drug smuggler for the notorious Medellin Cartel in Colombia. The DEA captures him and he agrees to become their informant. Unfortunately, though he is a master con artist, he is no match for the con men running the U.S. government agency. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Dennis Hopper
- 1991
Lonely Hearts is a modern film noir in which a lonely woman meets and falls for a man whom she refuses to let go. Alma (Beverly D'Angelo) is a wallflower who lives with her mother and works at a Social Security office. In her desperation to make some sort of social life for herself, she answers a personal ad and meets Frank (Eric Roberts) with whom she falls in love. Frank turns out to be a con man and a swindler, but Alma is obsessed with him. She begins to help him by posing as his sister while he cons other women, until she and Frank are forced to flee when one of the victims hires a private detective. Beverly D'Angelo plays Alma with the perfect mixture of both predator and victim and director Andrew Lane understands and directs his actors well, making Lonely Hearts a very well-thought-out and executed thriller despite a somewhat languid pacing. ~ Linda Rasmussen, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Beverly D'Angelo, Eric Roberts, (more)
In this futuristic action drama directed by Lewis Teague, Frank Warren (Rutger Hauer) is a man accused of stealing millions of dollars worth of gems. In prison, all the inmates wear collars which are electronically joined to those of an unknown partner. The collars will explode if either partner gets more than 300 feet away from the other. Warren is determined to escape, however, and finds that his partner is Tracy Riggs (Mimi Rogers). They plan and execute an elaborate escape and head off to search for the stolen diamonds. But members of Warren's former gang pursue them. ~ Michael Betzold, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Rutger Hauer, Mimi Rogers, (more)
- 1991
- R
A police detective must rescue his ex-wife from a kidnapper who is hiding out in an uncompleted skyscraper in this action film also titled The Concrete War. ~ Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide
- 1991
- NC17
Russell's avowed purpose with Whore was to avoid the glamorous depiction of prostitution common to such slick Hollywood products as Pretty Woman. As played by Theresa Russell (no relation to Ken), the eponymous character lives a hellish existence. Relating her story directly to the camera, Russell introduces us to her no-good former husband (Jason Saucier), her brutish pimp (Benjamin Mouton), and the kinkiest of her "johns." Her one true friend, a bag man named Rasta (Antonio Fargas), also saves her life -- but not her soul. The film exists in three versions: an 82-minute R cut, an 82-minute NC-17 cut, and the 92-minute European version, which sometimes carries a rating, sometimes merely a disclaimer. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Theresa Russell, Benjamin Mouton, (more)
- 1990
- R
"You have the right to remain silent . . . Forever!" This sequel to Maniac Cop pits Matt Cordell (Robert Z'dar), the crazed, murderous "Maniac Cop" of the first film (now horribly disfigured after a particularly brutal stay in prison), and Turkel (Leo Rossi), a serial killer who likes to murder strippers, against a frenzied NYPD detective, Sean McKinney (Robert Davi), who is just one step ahead of a nervous breakdown. His nerves don't get much relief when officers Jack Forrest (Bruce Campbell) and Teresa Mallory (Laurene Landon) insist that Cordell is still alive -- not only alive, but unkillable. Then Jack is murdered and the silent Maniac Cop breaks Turkel out of jail. With a group of rancid prisoners, they take police department psychologist Susan Riley (Claudia Christian) hostage. When the prisoners attempt a massive prison break, McKinney musters his forces to hunt down Cordell and Turkel and save Susan. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Robert Davi, Claudia Christian, (more)
