Gavin and Stacey [Baby Cow Productions]

Machete [Sony]:

Machete might well be the most politically astute and courageous film in recent memory. Whilst director Roberto Rodriguez sketched out the idea long before Arizona’s controversial border protection laws were enacted – in turn sparking an ugly public debate about the rights of Mexican immigrants – it’s impossible to view Machete outside this context.

Machete (Danny Trejo) is a Mexican Federale; a good cop mired in a sea of corruption and bribery. Three years after his family were murdered by brutal drug lord Torrez (a brilliantly over the top Steven Segal) Machete wanders the Texan streets; an illegal alien eking out a meagre existence as a day labourer. When a slimy gringo offers Machete a suitcase full of cash to assassinate a rabid anti-immigration politician (Robert de Niro), he accepts. But the fix was in and Machete was being set up all long. Soon enough the film starts unravelling at blistering speed as heads are severed, litres of blood are spilt and limbs fly as Machete is forced to defend his almost innocence.

Rodriguez loads up plenty of knowing winks; legendary gore FX man Tom Savini as a henchman, referencing his cameo in the original Dawn of the Dead, Cheech Marin as a pot smoking priest, Michelle Rodriguez as an impertinent freedom fighter and Don Johnson as a drawling vicious good ol’ boy vigilante.

And then there’s the man himself, Machete. In the world of grizzled and pock-marked Mexican character actors, Danny Trejo reigns supreme. But stepping into the leading role limelight has proven to be a risky move and in a film glistening with supporting actor delights Trejo is the weakest link. Quite obviously playing the stoic pillar of strength whilst the world collapses around him, Trejo can’t quite get the pitch right. In the end it’s a moot point – Machete is eye-popping, fast-paced brilliant fun.

Immigration Nation – The Secret History of Us [Madman]:

Think of this as a version of Howard Zinn’s landmark 1980 publication  A People’s History of the United States. Like Zinn’s book, this doco gives voice to the forgotten people, the ones forcibly removed both from the pages of history and from the land (in the case of one confused Fijian/Indian girl in the ‘70s) by that old paragon of British Imperialism, the White Australia Policy. Long before anyone here had slurped a pho, gorged a pizza or regretted a kebab our Prime Minister, Billy Hughes, could be found lecturing world leaders at the 1919 Paris Peace Conference that no way would he support a racial equality clause and fat bloody chance he’d let any of those wily Japanese past our borders. Nearly a century later, politicians at the highest level seem to be reading from the same noxious script.

For three quarters of a century, it was an immigration policy supported by both sides of politics that doggedly strived to ensure Australia remained as homogonous as possible. The land of opportunity… So long as you were white. A few rabble-rousers (Charles Perkins) attacked the edifice, but the institutional strength of ‘white’ Australia was near indomitable. Yet cracks were appearing. Menzies tried to stem the flow with the Colombo Plan, the first mass advertising campaign promoting Australia as a great, not really racist country. It failed. Whitlam said he cared, but the figures and facts suggest otherwise. It was Fraser who reversed the rot and welcomed thousands of fleeing Vietnamese. One of the reasons he is hated by the new generation of conservatives. Says it all really.

But history is contestable. And there are large swathes of our populace longing for days of yore; a mythical place that never even existed, as Immigration Nation makes so plainly clear. Riveting, angry and essential stuff.