But they're tricks that narrow its audience to viewers who enjoy watching flesh melt. Kurtzman has a story credit here.) As that suggests, visual tricks are a lot of the finished film's raison d'etre. Tarantino originally wrote this screenplay while still a video store clerk, having been commissioned for the job by Robert Kurtzman, who ran a special-effects makeup company. Rodriguez stages a fight like this, the veins spurt and the eyeballs pop and the body parts wind up all over the floor.Ī bit of history: Mr. Suddenly the special effects come full throttle and the film becomes an all-out bloodbath, as the bikers and topless dancers at the bar morph into blood-sucking monsters, and the Fullers and Geckos have the chance to battle real evil. It's here that "From Dusk Till Dawn," as if suffering the effects of a vampire's bite, turns into something entirely different. Kidnapped by the Geckos, the Fullers wind up in Mexico at the sleazy, stripper-filled bar that becomes the film's principal set. Ernest Liu nicely holds his own in this strange company as Mr. It's one of the film's little jokes that Juliette Lewis is cast as the clean-living ingenue while Harvey Keitel, behind glasses and a bushy beard, plays the ex-pastor who is her solemn father. Then these two (describing themselves as "a couple of real mean motor scooters" in the script's jokey pop argot) meet the film's innocent characters: the Fuller family, driving through the desert in a recreational vehicle and unlucky enough to stop at the Geckos' motel. Clooney (with flames tattooed across his neck), Seth is the brains of the operation. Played with grit and no apologies by the truly dashing Mr. Beginning in mid-holdup at the colorful desert outpost called Benny's World of Liquor, the film follows the Geckos as they head for Mexico. Rodriguez has made his trademark the sight of unperturbed heroes walking away from burning buildings without looking back.ĭuring a promising if down-and-dirty first hour, "From Dusk Till Dawn" introduces two of these hard guys: the Gecko brothers, Seth (Mr. Clooney tells a hostage not to flee "because I got six little friends and they can all run faster than you can." For his part, Mr. Tarantino's sharpest dialogue involves gun-related threats, as when Mr. Certain ground rules apply: This is violent, profane film making, just as "Pulp Fiction" was, and it revels in pitch-black satire that delights in meanness and mayhem. And for a while it even holds a winning hand. So "From Dusk Till Dawn" has the feeling of high-stakes poker. Not many television actors make the transition easily, but not many look this much like Cary Grant. R." to another try at leading-man stature on the big screen. Robert Rodriguez, who made the only watchable "Rooms" segment after the fiery but uneven "Desperado," tries directing his most ambitious feature.Īnd George Clooney, whose previous feature film credits include "Return of the Killer Tomatoes," goes from television stardom on "E. Quentin Tarantino, last seen doing himself serious harm in "Four Rooms," wrote this film's screenplay and plays a starring role. The vampire western "From Dusk Till Dawn" raises more than the usual curiosity about who will come back from the dead.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |