El Mariachi

El Mariachi (1993) is Robert Rodriguez's crime action debut you can watch online on iFILM. A wandering mariachi rolls into a dusty Mexican town with nothing but his guitar, hoping to find work and keep the family trade alive.

The trouble is that another stranger has just arrived: a hitman who hides his pistols inside a guitar case. A local drug lord mixes the two men up, and suddenly the harmless musician has gunmen chasing him through the streets. One black case holds strings, the other holds firepower, and nobody can tell them apart. To stay alive, he picks up something other than his guitar. Carlos Gallardo leads, with Consuelo Gomez and Peter Marquardt alongside.

Rodriguez shot the whole thing for next to nothing — the famous figure is around seven thousand dollars, a borrowed camera and friends standing in for a crew. It launched the Mariachi trilogy and one of the most resourceful directors in the genre. Stream El Mariachi (1993) online on iFILM.