Before Robert Rodriguez' El Mariachi, Mexicans in North American action films were typically maids, drug dealers or prison inmates. Even if the Cisco Kid was a friend of yours, you handled a dust cloth or a Mac-10 if you lasted in Hollywood longer than a New York minuto.

But when El Mariachi crossed the border in 1992, things changed. Granted, it still involved a drug lord in a shoot-em-up but this time the good guy was a Mexican.

Austin-based Rodriguez made El Mariachi for a fistful of pesos and a little help from his friends. He wrote, directed, coproduced, edited and operated the camera. Plus, he assembled a cast that had never acted before to work por nada.

Desperado continues the outrageous action adventure. Working with a much bigger budget, Rodriguez returns the nameless mariachi to non-stop action. Again thrust into a world he never made, the hero takes his guitar-case arsenal deep into the criminal labyrinth of Bucho (Joaquim de Almeida), el gran chingon of the Mexican drug lords. With an amigo (Steve Buscemi) and a beautiful bookstore owner (Salma Hayek), el mariachi confronts an outrageous cast along the way, including a bartender (Cheech Marin), a drug-deal, pick-up guy (Quentin Tarantino) and the original mariachi (coproducer Carlos Gallardo) as a new-found compa'.

Antonio Banderas has the lead this time, and if he's not quite up to the challenge, it's probably because he's Spanish, not Mexican, a distinction not lost by anyone raised on what the popular media now calls "ethnic food."

That said, Desperado is not to be missed. Using intelligence, romance and humour--as well as plenty of explosive, surreal violence--Rodriguez again showcases the timeless struggle between the forces of darkness and light. And, in the process, he's recasting the mould for the contemporary action hero--kids now argue about who gets to play the Mexican. --Stephan Magcosta, Amazon.com

Matthew Broderick makes up for years of wet-noodle performances with his low-key but unsparing characterisation of Jim McAllister, a high-school teacher at George Washington Carver High School in Omaha, Nebraska. Driven by a strange mixture of loathing and lust for pathologically overachieving student Tracy Flick (Reese Witherspoon), McAllister encourages a dim but popular athlete, Paul (Chris Klein from American Pie), to run against her in the election for student-council president. Director/co-writer Alexander Payne (Citizen Ruth) turns this deceptively simple premise into a complex and scathing comedy of ambition, corruption and desire, all at its most naked and petty. Every scene contains some painfully funny nuance that will make you wince in a mixture of astonishment and empathy. Witherspoon flips effortlessly back and forth from adolescent vulnerability to steely-eyed strength; she is becoming a contemporary Carole Lombard. The movie itself feels like a magnificent throwback to the richly layered comedies of the 1930s, which drew their humour from sharply drawn characters and twisting plots instead of explosions of bodily fluids. With a wealth of smart, cutting details, Election rewards multiple viewing. --Bret Fetzer