FILM: Derek Malcolm
IT IS difficult to imagine a sillier film than From Dusk Till Dawn, but the fact that it was written by Quentin Tarantino and directed by Robert Rodriguez, supposedly two of the most talented tyros Hollywood wants so badly to make its own, renders the enterprise the more absurd. Is this schizophrenic Dizzie Lizzie of a movie really the best they can offer?
It starts well. A couple of blank-eyed bank robbers (George Clooney and Tarantino) are making their way to Mexico, where they have been promised sanctuary. Having been dubbed America’s most wanted men, they are not in total command of what passes for their senses.
You want to laugh at them until they raid a liquor store, kill the owner and then kidnap a woman whom one of them rapes and kills in the motel where they are hiding out.
After which, it looks as if this is Pulp Fiction without the saving grace of wit as they also kidnap a preacher (Harvey Keitel) and his two children, forcing them to drive towards their Mexican oasis. One of the kids is Juliette Lewis, who gets the eye from the rapist.
The preacher is having a crisis of faith, which is not surprising under the circumstances, and doesn’t feel any better when the posse arrives at the Titty Twister, the nitery where Carlos (Cheech Marin) awaits them.
It is the kind of parody Mexican bar – inhabited by bikers, entertained by half- naked girls – that you might find in one of those Sixties road movies adorned by Peter Fonda. But it quickly becomes evident that Rodriguez and Tarantino are intent on parodying parody. The whole lot are also vampires.
What follows is enough to send even Roger Corman screaming for the exit, though John Carpenter might be flattered to find it developing into a none too gentle rip-off of Assault On Precinct 13. You will be glad to know that Tarantino turns into a vampire and explodes – a fate he justly deserves after taking this elderly screenplay out of his bottom drawer.
The whole thing is obviously intended as the kind of rip-roaring entertainment anyone could watch with a bellyful of beer inside them on a Saturday night. But, stone cold sober, it seems a bit of a trial.
This is partly because the writing is not very much better than you would expect if you got some exploitative C-movie out of the video shop, though I have to say that Clooney and Keitel both get their tongues round the lines as crisply as they can and endeavour to find some light and shade within their one- note characterisations.
The filming is proficient -Rodriguez is a dab hand at piling on the action and orchestrating the gore. But it seems hardly worth his efforts to be professional in the first place. Perhaps critical snootiness, however, is a waste of time. The film is clearly meant to be an energetic joke and that’s exactly what it is.