Robert Rodriguez‘s career was born from limitations. With a desire to become a film-maker but a lack of funds, Rodriguez famously participated in scientific test subject work whilst penning the script for his debut low-budget feature. Intended for the Spanish video market the resulting film, El Mariachi, was a surprise festival hit and box office success. Costing just $7,000 to shoot Rodriguez made the most of what he had access to, his friends, a guitar case, a bus and created a fast-paced, witty, action flick that opened the cheque books of Hollywood studios. Anyone who has seen Rodriguez’s brilliant 10 Minute Film Schools on his DVD releases will have even more of idea how the director milked every penny from his tight budget.

Capitalising on its success Rodriguez did a Sam Raimi and basically re-made El Mariachi with a bigger budget (and sexier stars) as Desperado, with the budget going up three noughts to $7,000,000 Rodriguez expanded his vision accordingly. Creating cartoon-like shoot-outs, an array of explosive set-pieces and populating his cast with indie cool cameos (notably Tarantino as a jabbering pick-up guy). Desperado was still a low-budget flick, but it didn’t feel that way, Rodriguez used the limitations to his advantage once more and created a knockabout, if flawed, fun film.

After, whisper it, Four Rooms, Rodriguez and Tarantino joined forces again to bring – in my opinion – his finest film to date, From Dusk Til Dawn. This gritty post-crime thriller would have showcased an awesome twist if it weren’t for the giveaway title/trailer/poster/everything, but still is an expertly balanced Grindhouse flick with too-cool-for-school dialogue played beautifully by George Clooney, eager to shed his E.R. image, a generally fantastic supporting cast and gore-soaked, B-movie, horror action come the film’s second half.

It was after this, and The Thing-lite teen-horror The Faculty that things began to go awry. Spy Kids was a surprise move from the director, but a somewhat logical one, Rodriguez had always wanted to be a cartoonist and this light, colourful children’s flick was a silly but entertaining step. However when a sequel emerged barely a year later the charm was gone, replaced by an over-abundance of glossy effects and shrill dialogue, then another sequel plopped out a year after that, this time practically drowning in CG and coming out at you in gimmicky 3-D.

In an effort to return to his routes there was a third Mairachi movie, Once Upon A Time in Mexico, but despite its cooler-than-cool cast the film was a mess. Over complicated, under-written, lacking any real set-pieces or narrative drive, and sloppily edited. Sure it had Johnny Depp being a bit weird, Willem Dafoe playing a Latino and an okay bit where Salma Hayek and Antonio Banderas escaped from a building whilst chained together; but it just felt so slapdash and ill conceived, lacking any of the magic of his earlier, grittier efforts. Watching his Ten Minute Flick School on the DVD begins to shed light on why this may be so.

Rodriguez had, by this point, converted his house into his own studio and editing suite, with sound mixing and scoring facilities, just down the road from where he lived were his studios and effects house. Rodriguez had all the gadgets and gizmos a film-maker could desire right at his fingertips, 24/7. This was so, as Rodriguez says, he could move ‘at the speed of thought.’ This should, in some ways, bring out the best in a film-maker, but what it seemed to do was strip away the pressures of having a studio breathing down his neck, or a budget looming over his head. With his whip-smart style of using a lot of tricks and cheats to wring the most of low budgets he was actually beginning to under-think what he was doing, and cheating even when it wasn’t required.

There was a brief hurrah with the arrival of Sin City in 2005, a faithful recreation of Frank Miller‘s tale of guys, guns, girls and corruption. It was a comic book printed on celluloid and succeeds due to its reverence and adherence to the source material, indeed, going so far on the DVD as to present the film chopped up into its original ‘books’. Here the ‘limitation’ placed on Rodriguez was to adjust Miller’s panels to cinemascope and fit his grizzled speech bubbles into the lips of professional actors. With perfect casting the film succeeded, all style and swagger, the promise of a sequel was – unlike Spy Kids – no bad thing.

At the same time though Rodriguez brought another family-friendly 3D flick to our screens. I feel ashamed even writing these words: The Adventures of Sharkboy and Lava Girl. The story for this film came from Racer Rodriguez, Robert’s – by then – 8 year old son, and I only mention that mainly to reinforce how much freedom Rodriguez had amassed for himself as a film-maker. How many other auteurs could have their kid give them an idea for a movie and rush out and make it? Rodriguez’s home studio allowed him to create these ‘dream’ projects, the films that perhaps you and I may have conjured in our youthful imagination, and realise them with relative ease. The results, however, were dire.

Since then Rodriguez made the ‘quick and nasty’ Grindhouse installment Planet Terror, which suggested more of the cartoony, ultra-violent fun of Rodriguez past, but he seems to have squandered any remnants of respect he may have reamassed from that by following up with Shorts.

Now, far be it for me to judge a film before it’s released, but the trailer for this latest kid’s flick (starring Rebel Rodriguez), does not bode well.

Beyond this, who knows what’s in store for Rodriguez. His upcoming slate seems to chop and change ‘at the speed of thought’, with projects laying dormant and suddenly becoming green-lit or seemingly appearing out of nowhere. It seems that he may be about to lens the Grindhouse spin-off Machete, which, in itself, is a Mariachi spin-off as well, and perhaps this combination will bring out the best in Rodriguez. Though, personally, I wish he’d hurry up and return to Sin City. Other than that there’s the potential for his Predator sequel (?) Predators or his live-action take on The Jetsons.

Perhaps there are too many ideas in Rodriguez’s head, and with studios wavering commitments to a film-maker who works erratically, Rodriguez never reall gets a chance to properly develop a project, leaving results half-baked. Or, maybe he just has every tool at his disposal now and instead of figuring out a more ingenious way of making something work he can just nip down to the tool-shed and grab the appropriate CG template. It’s nice that an interesting film-maker, developing ‘original’ ideas can have some freedom for a change, it’s just a shame that the films coming from Rodriguez’s Troublemaker Studios seem to be a little, um, troubling.

© BRWC 2010.