I love Tarantino, but Rodriguez, not so much. Still, whenever these guys pair up for some project, we always expect something extraordinary. Well, my friends, don’t expect much from this one, because the way it is, or the way it turns out to be, it could have been directed by just about anybody.
The movie starts off well. It’s not Rodriguez, though, it’s very Tarantino. It’s Quentin from the dialogue to the camera movements. The Rodriguez bit seems to start the very moment the quality of the movie starts going to the shitters, and that starts coincidentally when they arrive at the Titty Twister, the place where everyone is a vampire, and if you ain’t one, you’ll sure become one or die trying. Backtrack. This starts off as a film about two robbers who try and run away from Mexico. These two robbers are Clooney and Tarantino. Here is the thing I am really fed up about; one of them rapes and murders a bank clerk that they hold hostage for a while. Immediately later on, we are supposed to feel sorry for him, and take his sides. It’s the second film I have seen this week where something like this happens; in The Devil’s Rejects we get the most obnoxious of ending sequences where we finally are shown what a tight and loving unit a family of psychopathic killers are. I wonder why stylistic cinema nowadays has to have its priorities so mixed up…its like a must nowadays.
Examining the film closer, one could still choose to admire its comic book like structure and violence and forgive the almost complete lack of realism or any sort of ethic. The lack of ethic we can forgive in movies that give you a reason in quality that explains it, but this film is a bit too obnoxious for no apparent reason. In the end, what could have been a pretty cool premise for a cool runaway robbers movie becomes some sort of violent vampire fest that looks a lot more like a gory version of The Mummy than anything else. After a while, we are almost forced in feeling absolutely nothing for the characters in the movie, because they are much too unrealistic. Just consider that in the end, the family that was held hostage by the robbers and threatened to kill them and the robbers themselves become best of friends, and even more so, at the end of the movie the girl in the family sees her father and her brother killed, but acts as if nothing happened and drives away.
I guess the way you can appreciate this movie is if you forget about an emotional connection with it, and admire it as if it were a lava lamp; it has no more depth than a lava lamp, it’s only a lot od stylistic graphics and nothing more, and Robert Rodriguez is anothe one of those overrated directors.
WATCH FOR THE MOMENT – Selma Hayek’s snake lap dance for Tarantino. Real iconic.
I appreciate the comment you made about the style, but From Dusk Till Dawn doesn’t really bear close examination as far as it’s worth as an honest-to-goodness tale of endeavor and ‘against all odds’ derring-do. I would argue that the film could not have been directed by just about anyone, for the stylistic appearance you mentioned is, if not a trademark feature, certainly a recognizable undertone of both Tarantino and Rodriguez. Here, this style is admittedly blatant and almost sordidly blunt in it’s overtness. There was clearly never any intention by the film-makers to warm their characters to their audience which will be why you feel no compulsion to root for them, or be upset by their demise. The film is like eating candy-floss and finding a joke human finger in the middle of it. Entertaining, purposefully OTT and really, just a bit of a laugh. But ultimately, not really worth getting too upset about.
… I thought the film was awesome as hell.
From Dusk Till Dawn always struck me as one of those movies where an in-depth analysis just seems to miss the point– yes, the acting ranges from decent to bad, and there is no ‘positive’ message to be found. But I thought the movie made it fairly clear from the start: check your brains in at the door, and watch some stylized hyper-violence. The acting is expected to be cheesy, and (I sincerely hope) nobody is looking for moral guidance from a Tarantino/Rodriguez flick about vampires.
Really, the only major concern is whether or not it was entertaining, and I personally thought it was.