Zorro
Genre: Action/Western
Director: Alfonso Cuaron
Writer: Johnny Mercer
Based on the characters created by Johnston McCulley
Cast: Diego Luna, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, Michael C. Hall, Melissa Barrera, Richard Cabral, Carlos Bardem, Tanaya Beatty, Damian Alcazar
Plot:
1872
In the dusk-tinged badlands outside the pueblo, a masked rider charges down a crumbling hill toward a tax collector’s guarded wagon. Townsfolk watching from behind rocks murmur with awe, Zorro. Or so it seems. This rider is sloppy and violent, hacking at crates with no finesse, his blade striking wildly. He leaves behind a jagged “Z” on a broken chest before being gunned down by soldiers. His death silences the crowd—but the legend of Zorro has been whispered into the wind once more.
In the hot pueblo square, townsfolk line up for tax inspection. A young corporal, drunk on authority, barks orders with theatrical flair. When an elderly man hesitates in front of him, the corporal shoves him with the butt of his rifle, sending him sprawling into the dirt. The man groans, clutching his ribs. Murmurs ripple through the crowd. A voice shoots out telling the corporal to stand down. All eyes turned as a lone figure stepped from the shade of an archway. Cloaked in road-dust and his hat pulled low. Diego de la Vega (Diego Luna) knelt beside the old man and helped him to his feet. His face was shadowed by a beard he tells the corporal that the old man has “Paid more in sweat” than the Corporal had in years. The corporal sneered at Diego asking who he thinks he is. The corporal took a step forward, fingers brushing his holster. Before it could escalate, Sergeant Gonzales (Carlos Bardem) pushed through the crowd. “Enough,” he snapped, loud enough to still the square. “Return to your post, corporal.” The corporal tries to argue but Gonzales tells him to leave. Gonzales didn’t look at Diego. Not directly. But there was a pause. The corporal bit back a reply and stomped back to his station. Diego gave a slight nod and disappeared into the alley without another word. A child tugged on her mother’s sleeve and whispered something. The mother didn’t respond, only pulled the child close and looked after the retreating figure. Gonzales stood for a long moment, then turned back to the alley where Diego disappeared, then back to the line to ensure they are paying their taxes.
“De Usuahia a la Quiaca” - Gustavo Santoalalla
We cut to Diego riding away, guiding his horse along a narrow ridge, until he reaches a crumbling outcrop marked by a shrine. Smoke curls from a low fire outside a rough shelter, where Bernardo (Richard Cabral), his old companion, scarred, and mute, communicates with him through gesture and dry-eyed glances. Diego dismounts and removes his hat, running a hand through his damp, graying hair. Before he can sign to Bernardo a voice calls out: “You’re not easy to find.” Luciana Ortega (Melissa Barrera) steps from behind the rocks, a former student of his father’s school. Bernardo looks up, unmoving. She says she saw what happened in the square. Diego brushes her off, telling her the crowd was about to erupt. He didn’t do it for heroics. She mentions the tax wagon. Diego is taken aback by that news but insists that Zorro died with his father. He hasn’t worn a sword in years, and he has no intention of starting now.
She pushes a folded flyer into his hands: it depicts the man killed by soldiers—the false Zorro.
At the Los Ángeles garrison, Captain Esteban Ramon (Manuel Garcia-Rulfo) dines on roasted quail while overseeing the public lashing of a suspected rebel. Elegant in his dress, Ramon is respected and feared—less for brutality than for precision. After the execution, he retreats to his quarters, where Nathaniel Griggs (Michael C. Hall) awaits, smiling. Griggs speaks of railroads, of progress, of trade—always dressed in noble language. But Ramon understands the subtext. They speak of Zorro's alleged return, and Griggs, grinning, instructs Ramon to make a public example of whoever dares wear the mask. Ramon agrees, not out of loyalty—he simply hates unfinished stories.
“Luz De Luna” - Rozalen
Diego walks alone to a ruined mission deep in the hills, where his father's sword lies buried beneath the altar. He remembers—brief flashes—being a boy, sparring with Don Alejandro in the orchard, hearing his father say, “A blade is not power. A blade is purpose.” That purpose died when Alejandro refused to sell his land to Griggs’ men and was hanged under forged charges. Diego left everything behind—his name, his cause, his country. But now, that past is stirring again.
Griggs, hosts a lavish banquet at his estate outside the pueblo, inviting corrupt dons, American speculators, and Mexican military officers. He toasts to unity and peace, offering gold for loyalty and whisky for silence. As music plays, he privately meets with gunrunners and land agents, revealing a map of Alta California divided into parcels—lands already promised to settlers who haven’t arrived yet. Zorro, he tells them, is nothing but a bedtime story. “But fear,” he says with a smirk, “fear is real estate.”
In the village square, Sergeant Gonzales, sweating in the heat and half-drunk, abuses his post by shaking down a fruit vendor who refuses to pay “protection tax.” He tells the man that there is noone here to protect them now, Gonzales obviously putting on a show earlier in the film. The child from earlier steps forward, clutching a toy sword carved from driftwood. Gonzales crushes it under his boot. Luciana sees this and intervenes, striking Gonzales with a palmful of courage. He backhands her in return, and the townsfolk shrink away. That night, the vendor’s home burns under “unexplained circumstances.” In the soot, the boy finds a crude “Z” carved into the outer wall, and his mother whispers, “He’s watching.”
“The Journey” - Gustavo Santaolalla
In the rocky shelter of his camp, Diego sits by a low fire. Bernardo sharpens an old dagger, glancing up wordlessly. Luciana returns, bruised, and lays out a stolen map showing Griggs’ militia movements. She speaks plainly: the people don’t need a prince—they need a symbol. “If you won't be him,” she says, “then let them believe you are.” Diego says nothing. But as night falls, he walks to a chest buried in the stone—within it, his old rapier and a scorched black mask. He stands in silence, the firelight reflects on the steel.
“The Ecstasy of Gold” - Ennio Morricone
In the early morning haze, a convoy of munitions bound for Griggs’ estate winds through a mountain pass. Just as it enters a narrow stretch, the lead horse rears—startled by a symbol scorched into a nearby boulder. A lone figure stands at the ridge in black. In a blink, he descends, sword flashing with surgical precision. He doesn’t kill—he disarms and disables. Then, vanishes into the fog. The final crate is left untouched, save for a single mark burned into its wood: a perfect, clean “Z.”
At the garrison, Captain Ramon seethes at the failure. He interrogates the captured convoy guards, offering them cigarettes, then lighting them with the same match he uses to set their confiscated rifles ablaze. He warns Gonzales that he’ll be reassigned to latrine duty if he doesn’t find the rebels’ hideout by week’s end. Gonzales, more shaken than usual, stammers that the people are “praying to ghosts.”
In a canyon near Diego’s camp, Luciana trains her growing rebel network—peasants, outcasts, and two former soldiers. Tasha (Tonantzin Carmelo), the Tongva scout, criticizes their clumsy drills and proposes they sabotage the telegraph lines next. Luciana holds the group together through sheer will, but privately tells Diego they need a face. They need him. He refuses to lead them in person but promises to strike from the shadows. He tells her to make him myth and he will make them all listen.
Bernardo infiltrates Griggs’ estate disguised as a groundskeeper, studying the comings and goings of military wagons. He discovers that Griggs is stockpiling weapons in grain silos and shipping gold south under fake charity shipments. At night, he lights a small candle beneath a floorboard in the church ruins—his way of signaling success. Diego sees it from afar. No words are exchanged, but everything is understood.
Griggs holds court in his parlor with wealthy investors and a U.S. envoy who "just happens to be in the area." He warns that the region is slipping into chaos thanks to “foreign myths” like Zorro and “native aggression” from tribes like the Tongva and Chumash. He proposes a provisional territory—privately owned, publicly protected. His guests applaud. In the hall, a young maid hears it all and later delivers word to Luciana’s cell.
Later that week, Zorro strikes again—this time during daylight. A militia patrol stops to harass farmers; when they do, a masked figure on horseback descends the slope, unhorses three men, and cuts the fourth's belt so his pants drop in front of the crowd. The people erupt in laughter. For the first time, joy and rebellion walk hand in hand. As Zorro flees, children chase after him with toy swords, echoing the same old stories.
Captain Ramon’s fury boils beneath his polished surface. He orders increased patrols, house searches, and silent curfews. Torture becomes routine in the barracks. But he isn’t without his doubts—alone, he opens an old letter from Don Alejandro, written years ago when they were students under the same swordmaster. “Honor,” it reads, “is not what you protect. It’s what you refuse to betray.” Ramon crumples the letter and orders ten men hanged without trial.
“Elegy” - Lisa Gerrard & Patrick Cassidy
Gonzales, meanwhile, begins to soften. After arresting a boy who drew a “Z” in the dirt, he hesitates, then lets the child go. He doesn’t report it. That night, he drinks alone, staring at the cracked buckle on his boot. A memory flickers—his first time seeing Zorro, twenty years ago. A younger man. A different kind of fear.
In flashback, we see Diego () and Ramon () as teenagers in the old fencing courtyard, circling each other, bare-chested and bruised. Don Alejandro (Damian Alcazar) watches from the shadows. “Ramon wins with fury,” he says. “But Diego wins with purpose.” The duel ends in a draw.
Back in the present, Ramon rides to Griggs’ estate and demands full autonomy to “deal with the ghost.” Griggs agrees, but warns him: “If you fail, I’ll erase you before the ink dries.”
Zorro leaves a message nailed to the church door—“Land cannot be bought when it is already blood.” That night, Griggs’ men raid a village, setting fires and executing three farmers as collaborators. Luciana tries to evacuate children, but is captured in the chaos. As dawn breaks, Ramon personally delivers her to the garrison prison. He tells her: “You’ve mistaken poetry for a plan.” Diego, watching from the rooftops, does not intervene. He hesitates. For the first time since putting on the mask again, he questions his return. Bernardo finds him in the chapel ruins that evening, silently placing Alejandro’s mask in his lap. This time, it is not to ask—but to remind.
“Where is My Mind” - Pixies (Slowed Piano Version)
In the dead of night, Diego rides into the pueblo in full black, his sword sheathed, his mask worn low. He surrenders himself at the garrison gates, unarmed. Captain Ramon accepts the arrest without words. The garrison is hushed as the soldiers look upon the man behind the legend. Ramon throws him into the same cell as Luciana. Their eyes meet—hers are bruised, his are hollow. “Now you show up?” she whispers, blood drying on her lip. He doesn’t answer.
Word spreads like fire: Zorro has been unmasked. In the taverns, people go silent. The villagers stop drawing Z’s in the dirt. Fear creeps back into their bones. Griggs declares martial law in a “joint letter” signed by American investors and Mexican officials. He visits the jail personally to see Diego chained. They share a brief, cold exchange. “You’re not a fox,” Griggs says. “You’re a coyote caught in your own snare.”
At the edge of the valley, Tasha leads a small band of rebels on a daring raid. She and Bernardo sabotage the telegraph lines, cut supply routes, and intercept a troop column before it can reinforce the garrison. In the mountains, peasants begin marching—without Diego’s orders. Luciana’s network, once in hiding, begins to act.
“Alma” - Gustavo Santaolalla
Inside the prison, Diego and Luciana reflect in whispered fragments—on Alejandro and their masks. Luciana tells him she doesn’t need him to be a hero, only honest. Later that night, Bernardo detonates a powder cache beneath the garrison wall with stolen fuse wire. The blast tears open the cells, and chaos erupts. Gonzales, who has grown increasingly disillusioned, lets Diego and Luciana pass, nodding once, without expression.
Outside, the pueblo has become a war zone. Civilians flee. Griggs’ militia fires indiscriminately. Zorro rides again, slipping between alleys and flames, cutting down gunmen with grim, silent precision. He doesn’t want to inspire anymore, but he wants it to be over.
“Elegy for Dunkirk” - Dario Marianelli (Piano Version)
Captain Ramon finds Diego in the old chapel courtyard, just as the bells toll for dawn. They face each other as they did when they were boys. The swordfight is not elegant—it is exhausted, desperate. They circle like wounded animals. Diego wins—but spares him. Ramon tells him to just do it. Diego goes to walk away. Ramon puts his blade to his own throat but Diego knocks it aside and leaves him kneeling, broken.
At the rear of Nathaniel Griggs’ estate, Tasha crouches behind a broken wall. She grips a cloth-wrapped bottle in one hand and a flint striker in the other. A few feet behind her, Gonzales, hefts a satchel of dynamite and nods. Without ceremony, he strikes a match on the heel of his boot and lights the wick. Tasha tosses the first Molotov into the grain silo, then another into the weapons shed. Gonzales jams the dynamite beneath the porch beams. They slip into the shadows just as a thunderous explosion tears through the estate. Flames roar to life, consuming the silos, stables, and armories.
Luciana stumbles from the smoke with a child in her arms, the boy’s face streaked with ash and fear. She kneels beside a crumbling wall to catch her breath—then hears a scream. Turning toward the blaze, she sees him. Nathaniel Griggs, half his face blackened with soot, limps from the vault entrance clutching a bundle of singed papers—ledgers, land deeds, melted gold clinging to the seams. He coughs violently, eyes wild as he sees her. “Luciana…” he rasps. “Help me…” He collapses to one knee, crawling, dragging the useless remnants of his fortune behind him. For a heartbeat, she wavers. The boy clutches tighter to her. Griggs groans, reaching out, eyes wide with disbelief that the world no longer bends. “You wanted to own this place,” Luciana says, rising slowly. “But it was never yours. Not the dirt. Not the people. Not even their fear.” Griggs chokes, pleading. “Please… save me…” She steps back, gaze steady. “We save what we can,” she tells him, voice like iron. “You’re not part of that.” A burning timber crashes behind him. Griggs scrambles backward in vain, still clutching his ledgers like a drowning man holding gold. The vault ceiling groans above, then collapses in a roar of smoke and flame. The last thing Luciana sees before turning away is Griggs vanishing beneath it—devoured by the very walls he built to outlast empires.
With Griggs and Ramon defeated, the fighting ceases. Luciana gathers the villagers at sunrise in the square. She doesn’t mention Zorro’s name. She speaks of land, blood and memory. Diego, bruised and limping, watches from the shadows beside Bernardo, unseen.
Luciana burns the original “Z” banner in the chapel—not to erase the symbol, but to release it from the people. “Let them invent their own hero now,” she says. Diego smiles, faintly. Tasha looks up to the sky - seemingly free again. Gonzales, sober for once, begins rebuilding the school with volunteers.
“Andata” – Ryuichi Sakamoto
A young boy walks through the rubble. He picks up a broken rapier, holds it like a toy, and traces a “Z” into the dirt. His mother scolds him, gently, but doesn’t stop him. In the hills above, a lone rider disappears over the ridge. No flag. No name. Just a shadow in the wind.
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