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From Dusk Till Dawn / Full Tilt Boogie


RRP: £17.99
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Editorial
Amazon.co.uk Review

From a match made in heaven comes a movie spawned in hell! From Dusk Till Dawn sees young hotshot director Robert Rodriquez (El Mariachi, Desperado) team up with Pulp Fiction auteur Quentin Tarantino (offering his services as writer and costar) to make this outrageous, no-holds-barred hybrid of high-octane crime and gruesome horror. Tarantino plays Richard Gecko, a borderline psychopath who breaks his career-criminal brother, Seth (George Clooney), out of prison, after which they rob a bank and leave a trail of dead and wounded in their bloody wake. Then they hijack a mobile home driven by a former Baptist minister (Harvey Keitel) who quit the church after his wife's death and hit the road with his two children (played by Juliette Lewis and Ernest Liu). Heading to Mexico with their hostages, the infamous Gecko brothers arrive at the Titty Twister bar to rendezvous for a money drop, but they don't realise that they've just entered the nocturnal lair of a bloodthirsty gang of vampires! With not-so-subtle aplomb, Rodriguez and Tarantino shift into high gear with a non-stop parade of gore, gunfire and pointy-fanged mayhem featuring Salma Hayek as a snake-charming dancer whose bite is much worse than her bark. If you're a fan of Tarantino's lyrical dialogue and pop-cultural wit, you'll have fun with the road-film half of this supernatural horror-comedy, but if your taste runs more to exploding heads and eyeballs, sloppy entrails and morphing monsters, the second half provides a connoisseur's feast of gross-out excess. --Jeff Shannon, Amazon.com
On the DVD: the DVDs lavish features on us. The outtakes and deleted scenes are more of the same--exploding bellies, pus, blood and naked women with large teeth. The documentary "Full Tilt Boogie" is entertaining enough; the row with the unions, which it faithfully records, raises real issues about independent filmmakers and their work force. There are two music videos, a stills gallery, a reasonably acute commentary by Rodriguez and Tarantino and material about the art direction. The film is presented in Dolby Digital and a widescreen ratio of 1.85:1 as well as an ordinary one of1.33.1. --Roz Kaveney


Another over-the-top camp Tarantino-inspired farce with guns
Review date: 2008-09-23 Rating: 6 out of 10

I had no idea what this film was about when I started watching it, and was drawn in quickly by the tale of the violent and charismatic Clooney and the even more violent but decidedly less uncharismatic Tarantino as they make an unholy mess and escaped to Mexico. The family led by Keitel gets caught up in the criminals plans and the tension is really well done. Unlike another reviewer here, I really did sympathise with the position of the family and was genuinely hooked on what was going to happen to them all.

Sadly, the film for me ended up degenerating into the usual melange of gaudy visuals, one-speed pacing and bludgeoning pop-video action. Such a waste. You can see the moment when the film jumps the shark exactly - when Chet Pussy (Cheech Marin) is calling for punters outside the Titty Twister and suddenly breaks the fourth wall and addresses the audience directly to a camera at his feet. From then on you know that all sense of reality has gone and with it all the tension. It doesn't matter what happens to the characters any more because we're not supposed to believe that the movie is anything but a silly diversion, and the characters anything but props for the action, or moving mouthpieces for the writers one-liners. The film makers are free to off as many characters as they like in as stupid a way as possible, all the while having them wise cracking and completely unaffected by it all. God forbid that we should have any investment in the plot or the people! It's movie-making for the 30-second-attention-span generation.

Anyway,each to their own, blah blah blah. I know a lot of people like all that about Tarantino and his acolytes. But for me it's a waste of a talented scriptwriter. When he writes tight and serious he's outstanding. There's more to a good movie than quotable lines and explosive eye-candy.

I read in some places that this could be taken as a "parody" of vampire/horror movies. Well, the thing about a parody is that it's supposed to send up the genre it's parodying and be funny because *you know it's a parody*. Unfortunately, with vampire movies (and modern horror in general) it's hard to tell a parody from a standard movie, as the whole genre lapses into self-parody most of the time anyway.

All in all, it did what it was supposed to do - it was loud, entertaining on a superficial level, and utterly untroubling. I forgot it as soon as it finished and went on with my life as though nothing had happened. Movie as fast-food! Yay!

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Reviews


STARTS OUT AS A GOOD FILM...
Review date: 2008-07-14 Rating: 4 out of 10

...but ends up as a piece of crap.
Sorry, but this film is not good. It started out as a decent gangster movie and should have kept this path. There was enough potential here to make this Rodriguez' best film, but why did he have to bring in the vamps to make it a slayfest and ruin this? George Clooney and Quentin Tarantino were so great as the two Geckos brothers and the beginning scene was just awesome. What a pity.

Death by disco-ball.
Review date: 2008-03-27 Rating: 8 out of 10

This starts off as a very stylish film, and George Clooney is on top form. He seems to be relishing the role and and his energy comes through strong throughout the film. Harvey Keitel has great on screen presense and the initial scenes with him and Clooney practically sizzle.

The characters are magnetic and I struggled to pull my eyes from the screen, up to a point anyway...

We go from stylish gangster/roadtrip flick to comedy horror - and it's a great twist. The comedy violence is delightfully gory and I half expected Bruce Campbell to make an appearance! But then it seems to drag a bit, maybe it's just because the first half of the film has such a great pace - the latter half starts off funny but the joke starts to wear a bit thin.

It was great to see a film not take itself seriously though. From the very first scene to the final moments, the film is a jolly, a frolic, something to watch and unashamedly enjoy.

In a nutshell: The film is implausible and it knows it, it uses this to entertain and introduce aspects you simply don't expect. It is well casted and very much unique.



A film of two halves both great.
Review date: 2008-03-01 Rating: 10 out of 10

For me this is George Clooneys finest movie, and for that matter Quentin Tarantinos too. George is on great form as a clever but bad ass thief, think of a hard version of Danny Ocean from oceans 11 12 and 13.
I remember I first heard about this from a friend who thought that pulp fiction was the best thing ever and he watched it because it was a script by QT. He had seen it the night before and hated it with a passion. I asked him why and he said it was started ok then turned into a cheesy b-movie. To me it sounded ok so I checked it out, and glad I am that I did. Genius.

1 star is being nice
Review date: 2008-01-17 Rating: 2 out of 10

I'm going to go against the grain here and slate this film. There are some very good actors in this film, and directers, who should have been able to produce a better film than this. This is a BAD trashy horror film, that could have been made by anyone. I only bought it because it was partly directed by Tarantino. I sujest if you want a GOOD trashy horror, watch Planet Terror. George and Tarantino play bad ass robers, and the film is doing ok. Half way though the film, the seen completely changes with too much over the top blood, explosions and latex, then all of a sudden george's character changes and seems 'nice', whats going on? This film is over the top, and in a bad way. Seems to me to be just another film, made too quickly, with no real thought going into it, throw in a few famous names and hollywood explosions and hopefully it will make a few bucks. Only my opinion but i sujjest you buy something else. (My rant is now over).

Product Details/Specifications


Actor(s):
Juliette Lewis
Quentin Tarantino
George Clooney
Ernest Liu
Harvey Keitel

Creators:
Harvey Keitel (Primary Contributor)
George Clooney (Primary Contributor)
Quentin Tarantino (Writer)
Doug McCallie (Producer)
Elizabeth Avellan (Producer)
Gianni Nunnari (Producer)
John Esposito (Producer)
Robert Kurtzman (Writer)

Director(s):

Recording label: Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainm
Manufacturer: Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainm
EAN: 5017188883238
Binding: DVD
Number of items: 2
Format: Box set, PAL, Widescreen,
Release date: 2001-09-24
Number of discs: 1
Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
Audience rating: Suitable for 18 years and over
Region code: 2
Running time: 103 minutes
Theatrical release date: 1998-07-31
Language: English (Original Language)
Language: Spanish (Original Language)

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