Starts brilliantly, but takes an odd turning

Rating: 7/10 (21 March 2005)

An odd one, this. It starts out as one thing, establishes the opening mood very well, and then half-way through, just as we're really starting to get into it, it completely changes in tone, atmosphere and even genre into something slightly less impressive. I'm left wondering if it was Rodriguez's intention all along to create a flick that, very movie monster-like, is one thing by day and something very different altogether by night. Against a daylight setting, it's a crime thriller/character study wrapped up in a road movie, complete with sparkling dialogue, neat direction and interesting characters  and, as with any film revolving round a road trip, the real fun is always in the getting there. Maybe that's the problem  our heroes get to where they're going before we've even reached the midway point. It's here, in the nocturnal-based scenes, that the film undergoes its massive transformation, morphing into a rather raucous and grotesque kind of popcorn horror (though admittedly a tad too gruesome to inspire much of an appetite for popcorn consumption) with blood-sucking vampires, exploding heads and bodily fluid leakage aplenty. In merging the two distinctive halves together, I'm not sure just how successful it really is. It's certainly very different, captures the viewer off-guard as it goes, and the latter half still manages to provide decent, if mindless, entertainment, but it ultimately can't help but prove a mild disappointment in not quite living up to the slickness promised in the initial scenes.
The earlier scenes are the ones I personally prefer watching. It's here that the characters, when we're first introduced to them, are at their utmost best  the composed and easygoing criminal fugitive Seth Gecko, his immature, anti-social younger brother Ritchie, and, from the other side of the tracks, Jacob, a preacher-turned-agnostic widower with two teenage kids, all of whom are forced to accompany Seth and Ritchie on their run from the law when their paths inadvertently cross. The interaction that ensues between all five of these characters is excellent, the acting is fine (Clooney and Kietel both pull off their roles with ease, and, contrary to some critical bandwagons, Tarantino isn't bad at all) while there's a certain sprinkling of depth to them each that you desperately want the movie to work with. It's tempting sometimes, on repeated viewings, just to tune out once the vampire scenes get underway, not so much due to the goriness involved, but because what becomes of these characters from then on is a little unsatisfying. There are a few rewarding moments in between as both the kidnappers and their hostages begin to show signs of bonding and mutual understanding, but the beastly confrontations that soon entail never truly enable them to develop to their full potential  well, face it, what we have here is a brilliant ensemble of protagonists who could have faired easily as well in a more sophisticated adventure than the one they wound up with.
The humor in the sunlight half is also better accomplished, and fits in perfectly with the tension  healthy servings of macabre quirkiness as Ritchie examines his hand wound during the opening credits sequence (ouchnasty), and the inspired bickering between the two fugitive siblings as they exit the scene of one of their crimes, none of which detract from the screenplay's tenser moments. The nocturnal half, meanwhile, is obviously too silly to pass itself off as serious horror, and a mite too ugly to be all that amusing (still get a few giggles here and there, but what it mostly triggers, amidst all the guitar-strumming on dismantled human body parts, is unease). Even Tarantino's excellent scripting skills get a little bogged down in the subject matter around here, to the point where his zesty style seems completely absent. It would be wrong, however, to imply that the sequences involving those nefarious blood-suckers are lacking in a distinguishing edge of their own  Rodriguez does a good job with the atmospherics here in particular, highlighting the claustrophobic, infernal feel of the vampires' lair and giving it an appropriately nightmarish quality. That's probably the thing that works best about it.
What 'From Dusk Till Dawn' ultimately amounts to is an energetic and very enjoyable kind of summer movie, memorable and unusual enough to be worthy of the cult following it grabbed soon after. If you can accept it for what it is, then its entertainment value is guaranteed, and, as a loyal Tarantino fan, I've found plenty of things to savour. Still, a part of me will always wonder about the intelligent character drama that might have been had the Gecko brothers chosen to travel down a slightly different junction.
Grade: B+