The Cincinnati Enquirer from Cincinnati, Ohio • Page 74

ft- I 77ie Cincinnati Enquirer FILM Friday i4f 25, J995 23 WmlEWM CRITIC'S PICKS 9 'Desperate 'Desperado Director highlights sizzle over substance in action thriller BY MARGARET A. McGURK The Cincinnati Enquirer Boy-wonder Robert Rodriguez made his independent film El Mariachi for a few thousand dollars, we're told. He got millions for his big-studio sequel Desperado, and it looks like he spent half of it on bullets. The hero never shoots once when 50 slugs will do. A couple of times he even shoots bad guys who are already dead.

But Desperado is pretty much an exercise in MOVIE REVIEW Desperado (R; graphic violence, -Y i and extended nudity, sex, profanity). Antonio Banderas, Salma Hayek, Steve Buscemi, Cheech Marin, Quentin Tarantino. 106 minutes. At National Amusements. --Ufa 1 TOP ART FILM: Party Girl () Parker Posey is the best reason to check out this breezy look into the life of a New York City twentysomething who is casting about for something to bring meaning into her life.

Other highlights: rousing speeches on the heroism of librarians, and a strong performance by non-actor Omar Townsend as the Lebanese immigrant love interest. FOR KIDS: The Amazing Panda Adventure The bonus attraction of this live-action movie about an American boy rescuing a baby panda from poachers is the new Bugs Bunny cartoon that is showing with it. Carrotblanca casts Bugs in the Humphrey Bogart role in a takeoff on Casablanca. Funny business from virtually all the Looney Tune favorites Yosemite Sam, Pepe Le Pew, Sylvester, et al. will keep kids laughing.

At National Amusements. FOR TEEN-AGERS: Desperado () Be advised that in this R-rated movie many people are killed and much blood is shed. Director Robert Rodriguez apparently lifted ideas on how to kill bad guys from every shoot-'em-up of the last 30 years. But for action fans who can take the gore, this movie offers up witty, fast-paced fights and chases, snazzy camera work and two gorgeous co-stars in Antonio Banderas and Salma Hayek. At National Amusements.

HOW THEY RATE Excellent Good Fair Poor ly physical part He dances on a bar, slides, twists and dives through fights, jumps off a rooftop backward and breathes deeply in a honey-toned, quick-cut bedroom scene. He even sings. Rodriguez has a lot of fun with the elaborate choreography of the hyperviolent fights and over-the-top heroics. He never skips a chance to go for the gore. In one scene, the hero staggers down a street, apparently near collapse, with multiple wounds in his arms just so Rodriguez can show the blood smearing on the wall.

Moments later, he lifts a boy from the path of a truck and engages in an arm-waving argument with his love interest (Salma Hayek). That gives you an idea of how real this movie tries to be which is to say, not at all. It's essentially a cartoon with a little story thrown in to keep the mayhem rolling. But it's a splashy, flashy, sexy cartoon with a charismatic star who has a fine old time stomping his refined European image into the dust "It has been rough this past month," he said. There have been many fantasies printed.

I don't quite undc-stand. The fantasy is unbelievable, but at the same time, I know I am a public person. I try to pay the price and pay it with a sense of humor. I'm trying to relax and let the storm pass." When asked what Griffith is like as an actress, he replied: "She is very natural in her ability to do comedy. She is very beautiful." What do the two of them have in common as actors? "No, I should not talk about Melanie anymore," he said quickly.

"I don't know if we have things in common. I no tell you more." I' I i i Salma Hayek and Antonio Banderas star in Desperado 1 I I if excess all around, with wild, high-flying stunts of a Jackie Chan karate flick, the morality of a Charles Branson vengeance movie and the body count of a spaghetti Western. And for its nameless hero, it has Antonio Banderas. Boy, was that a smart move. Banderas is a haunted figure on the hunt for a drug dealer, and he plays the part with demented abandon and smoldering sex appeaL It's a high- of the comedy Two Much in Florida.

He plays a man who pretends to be his own twin so that he can romance two sisters, Griffith and Daryl Hannah. When we spoke, he was just off a plane from Spain, where he and Griffith reportedly visited his family. The romance has ended his eight-year marriage to Ana Leza. Before he entered the room, his publicist asked that there be no questions about Griffith, even if newspapers around the world have already run photographs of their Caribbean vacation together before their trip to Spain. But Banderas wearily brought up the subject himself.

Romance deepens Banderas' 'Latin Lover' image BY MAL VINCENT The Virginian-Pilot "He's got that Latin male thing going on heavily," his Desperado co-star Salma Hayek was saying. "Yes, Antonio is so intense. When he raises an eyebrow, I know what he means." A good percentage of the movie-going women around the world are also beginning to notice Antonio Banderas. He's making his action-movie debut in Desperado, opening today. He plays a former guitarist who now carries high-powered weapons in his guitar case.

In the movie's first 10 minutes, he guns down, maybe, 40 people. It is not a love story. Still, Banderas is constantly hit with the "Latin Lover" tag. Banderas seems to be stuck with the label. The comedies Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down! and Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown were in Spanish with subtitles but were still big hits on the art-movie circuit With his first English-language film, The Mambo Kings, he was typecast as a smooth character with hot rhythms.

"I didn't realize I was so passionate at all," he chuckled, "until I came here (to America). In my country, we are all like that very open to everything in life." It is his romance with blond Melanie Griffith that has fueled the Latin Lover tag. They met on the set.