From Good to Awful

Rating: 3/10 (16 January 2006)

You know, before this movie, I never thought that Quentin Tarantino could've been involved in anything bad. Well my friends, I have seen the devil, and its name is From Dusk Till Dawn.
This movie follows the rest of Tarantino's catalog and centers around a couple of lowlife thugs. In this case, it's the Gecko brothers, Seth and Ritchie (George Clooney and Tarantino himself). They're on the run from the law and about to cross the border into Mexico and Freedom. Their ticket out is the Fuller family (Harvey Keitel, Ernest Liu, and Juliette Lewis) also heading into Mexico. The Gecko brothers take the family hostage and, after making it across the border, hang out at the designated meeting place: a topless bar.
Now for the fun part. It turns out that the bar is a late-nite hangout for vampires. And guess who's on the menu tonight?
Appalled yet? I am. It's not that I'm against the idea in the first place, but these are two different movies duct taped together by one dance sequence. Sorry guys, it just doesn't work.
When watching this movie, I felt like I was driving in a car that, for no reason whatsoever, suddenly jumped into a higher gear and took off at full speed. The first hour of the movie was more than watchable; it was pretty damn good. I loved the characters of the Gecko brothers and I thought that the movie would be about the conflict between the calm, calculating Seth and the unpredictable Ritchie, who will shoot or rape whomever he pleases. In fact, when he first sees Juliette Lewis' character, he imagines her asking him for oral sex. Ritchie, in my mind, was the time bomb of the movie, waiting to go off and throw the plot into a tailspin. Whoo boy, was I wrong.
The second hour of the movie is the schlockiest of horror films you've ever seen. After seeing Robert Rodriguez' "Sin City", I knew that he had a taste for on screen violence. Well, this movie is more of the same. The vampires of the movie are the best that 1996 special effects could produce. That doesn't really say much, but man, are they gory. People's arms are ripped off their bodies, heads are hollowed out by shotguns, and one vampire is vanquished by having his heart ripped from his body and staked by a toothpick. Fun wow, huh?
The first half of the movie had Tarantino's trademark element of humor. For instance, the first time we see Seth and Ritchie, they are trying to get out of a liquor store that a cop has just entered. Once the cop leaves to relieve himself, Seth and Ritchie, guns drawn, start having a discussion about whether or not the clerk tipped the cop off. It's hilariously funny and timed to perfection. Those first scenes should set the tone for the rest of the movie. And as I've probably spent too much time belaboring, halfway through, the film takes a sharp left turn. Over a bridge. Down a ravine. And into a tar pit.
I wouldn't be so livid if the second half of the movie was well done. The vampire sequences in From Dusk Till Dawn have all been done before in other vampire movies, and frankly, the new parts just don't make any sense. While watching the film, I counted the following elements that caused my jaw to hit the floor, only to be reeled back up and let go again: 1. A cross composed of a shotgun and a baseball bat. 2. A hydraulic stake 3. A Holy Water Super Soaker (Can you say "Bordello of Blood"?) 4. Characters having personal moments while being devoured hoagie-style by vampires. 5. A mariachi band that, at the moment of truth, morphs into a band of mutants with bloody corpses for instruments. 6. Lines like "Okay Vampire Killers, let's kill some f***ing vampires!" 7. Multiple appearances by Cheech Marin.
See what I mean? What isn't tired is plain ridiculous. And there are more examples of absurdity in this movie. You could find them yourself, but don't say I didn't warn you.
Harvey Keitel, who's had a history with Tarantino, plays Jacob Fuller, a priest who lost his faith in God when his wife died. There's nothing necessarily wrong with this character or how he's portrayed, but tell me this, why is it that whenever there is a story concerning evil or Satanic creatures, the local priest chooses to question his faith then? Juliette Lewis plays his daughter. Honestly, I wish I could've gotten to know her better. Lewis is a very talented and beautiful actress, but I guess when you're stuck with a part that is basically a young girl reacting to the situation around her, it's like putting a ballet dancer in a full-body cast. The only defining personality trait about her is that she gets really good with a crossbow when the going gets tough. I mean, really, she's like the Teenage Terminator! (Not a bad idea.) And I can't really call it a "defining" personality trait because everyone gets it at the same time in this movie.
"From Dusk Till Dawn" just plain does not work. Tarantino and Rodriguez are very talented filmmakers, and they've proved that time and time again, but they have given both their resumes a black eye with this mutated hybrid of "Reservoir Dogs" and "Assault on Precinct 13." If you value the works of either person, avoid this movie like the vampires it portrays.