This was made for practically nothing, which is incredible. All it cost them to make this was $7000 and that was to have the Columbia logo on it. Great work.

A fine film for what it is - gun-toting action with some snappy dialogue.

Impressive, for a production so cheap. The story is simple, but it is fun and exciting. The performances are quite amateur, but it does not matter much, the final balance is positive.

The Mariachi trilogy starts off strongly. Impressive for the budget it was made on also. I wrote a paper on this film to get into my course on a side note.

Pretty cool for a low budget effort.

Very fun.

Great considering it's almost non-existent budget.

two words - fuckin' cult

This contemporary shoot-'em-up semi-spoofs spaghetti Westerns and Mexican action flicks. It's a visually choppy, grungy gem -- shot on a 14-day, $7,000 schedule and cleaned up somewhat by Columbia Pictures before release.

Initially lensed for $7,000 -- less than what it probably costs to feed and care for Arnold Schwarzenegger for a day -- Rodriguez's celluloid debut (reportedly audiovisually sweetened to the tune of an additional $150,000 of post-production prior to its theatrical release) at once conforms to, spoofs, and transcends the type of Mexican-border actioner that used to play Times Square's Hollywood Twin and still proliferates on video via titles like _Border Wars_.

Yeah yeah yeah $7000 budget Rodriguez is a genius blah blah blah. I'm still not *that* impressed here with what's actually on screen

Most films spend more on tea bags than this ones entire budget. And while it's not exactly pretty, it shows that the most important parts of a movie are the script, the actors and the director. While far from perfect, this is a concise movie with a clever plot and some unique moments. Let down at times by dodgy acting (the female lead and Moco towards the end being the biggest culprits) and some iffy shooting/editing probably due to budget constraints, this is a damned fine first film