Viking Night: From Dusk Till Dawn
By Bruce Hall
January 26, 2016
BoxOfficeProphets.com
And if it’s 1996, and the movie is directed by Robert Rodriguez (El Mariachi, Desperado) and written by Quentin Tarantino (Pulp Fiction, Reservoir Dogs), there was little reason not to be excited about that opening scene. But then, the scene turns into a wink-nudge farce as two characters walk away from a comic book explosion, casually delivering the trademark Tarantino wordplay that suggests humanity is going to be the least important commodity in this story.
And it is.
Seth (Quentin Tarantino) and Richie (George Clooney) Gecko are the bank robbers in question. Their big plan is to get to Mexico with the cash they’ve stolen, and to use their hostage to deal with whatever law enforcement throws against them on the way. Seth is what would happen if the Zodiac killer had unprotected sex with whatever keeps Stephen King awake at night. Richie is the “brains” of the operation (although that’s putting it lightly), a charismatic psychopath who promises their hostages they won’t be harmed, knowing that as soon as he leaves the room Seth is going to rape and/or murder them, and not necessarily in that order.
As the brothers make their way south, they cross paths with Jacob (Harvey Keitel), a wayward preacher traveling with his son Scott (Ernest Liu) and Kate (Juliette Lewis). Jacob hates God because his wife died, suggesting he may not have been all that devout in the first place. We never really find out about that, because this movie isn’t really interested in character development. Every scene is little more than a vehicle for the next one, as if the entire story were conceived around a single idea - what if we got THESE people and put them in THIS situation and gave them all guns?
The rest of the plot is merely an appendix to this conceit.
Naturally, The Geckos take Jacob and his kids hostage, and promise not to kill and/or rape any of them in exchange for a ride to Mexico. The Geckos are bad dudes who drink and drive, kidnap pretty young girls, and consider getting shot in the hand a minor occupational hazard not unlike getting smoke in your hair at a bar.
As if you can still smoke in bars. Thanks, Obama.
So, Jacob reluctantly agrees. At this point, you’d expect one of two things to happen. Either Jacob and his family find a way to outsmart their captors, with Jacob rediscovering his faith, and the Geckos either getting their comeuppance or learning a valuable lesson about the sanctity of life. Then, maybe we get a Straw Dogs style climax with an epic axe fight between Clooney and Keitel for all the marbles. Or, an outside influence could intervene, forcing everyone into an unlikely partnership where some alternate version of the above happens. Either way, the expectation is that we’re going to see some movement on the character arc needle before this is all over.
But… not so much.
The Crime Caravan stops at a luridly-but-logically named strip club I shall henceforth refer to as the “Double T.” If you want more than that, Cheech Marin will be standing out front, dressed like a Sergio Leone character, screaming about the off menu items at what appears to be Northern Mexico’s premier sex-slave emporium/bar and grill. The Double T is filled with stock characters like the Two Guys Fighting When You Walk In, Crotch Cannon Guy, Snake Dancing Girl, Large Angry Black Man (Played by blaxploitation veteran Fred Williamson because...Tarantino), Danny Trejo, and other things you don’t regularly see in the same room unless you’re Austin Powers or Jimmy Page.
Richard just wants to drink and have a good time, but this doesn’t last very long because he and his brother are the most simultaneously narcissistic, entitled and hyper-violent people on the planet. So when they inevitably pick a fight, half the people in the bar spontaneously turn into vampires and start butchering the other half, because that’s the kind of thing that happens in this movie. What had been, moments earlier, a fairly tepid crime thriller, suddenly becomes a screwball splatter horror/comedy. Imagine the video game Left 4 Dead, except it takes place on the set of Big Trouble in Little China and Roger Corman is just off set holding a paint sprayer full of pig’s blood.
And that’s...pretty much it. It’s not so much that this movie becomes a slapstick gorefest halfway through. It’s that this was a completely different movie for the first 45 minutes (and for that matter a rather repugnant one). After that, the story it turns into a sandbox of depravity for Tarantinez(™) to play in, along with then Hollywood “it” boy Clooney. What’s worse, the sudden shift requires us to sit through additional character introduction almost 90 minutes in. It brings the movie to a dead stop, just long enough for something ridiculously obvious to happen, before going balls out bonkers again for the duration.
Will Jacob the Preacher’s crisis of conscience play a role in the Vampire Cage Match that takes up all of Act III? Well, duh. Will Seth do something stupid? Will people with no previous weapons experience turn out to be crack shots with a crossbow? Of course. Will characters who have never witnessed death before behave as though splattering a crowd of undead against the wall like a Jackson Pollack painting is just another day at the office? Well, what do you think?
Don’t get me wrong - all of this on its own is fine. But this is a movie that can’t decide what kind of a movie it wants to be for almost an hour, and when it finally does it’s different - and inferior - to the expectations established earlier. It’s hard enough to invest in these characters as it is without having to find out that they’re all playing second fiddle to the prosthetics budget.
That said, Clooney is damn good. This film may be where someone got the idea he needed to be Batman. He’s right on the cusp of his “ageless young wonder” and “distinguished older gentleman” phases. He’s still able to pull off a street punk OR a CEO. Keitel is also good, although playing a tortured man of conviction is more or less his calling card. They both do what they do, and they successfully elevate the material they’ve been given, for whatever that’s worth. Juliette Lewis is, of course, adorable - in that Lori Petty/Sean Young-ish way that implies she might not be acting at all.
And on a side note, I can’t get over how believable Tarantino is as a morally bankrupt psycho/murderer/rapist/pedophile. I pray to God he’s just a better actor than I think he is.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that From Dusk Till Dawn is one of those films that’s clearly super impressed with itself, and thinks it’s a lot cooler than it really is. It’s like that guy you saw in the Tapout shirt behind the wheel of a tricked out ‘97 Civic blasting Skrillex at the stoplight this morning. What you witnessed is an exercise in concentrated overcompensation that fails to be interesting because it’s so self consciously derivative. That is, in a nutshell, this movie, and I can’t help but find it appropriate that at the end (no spoilers), everyone who DOESN’T die just kind of shrugs and walks away.
It’s just a cynical, sloppy film for which ultra-violence is a means to an end, rather than a natural outgrowth of the plot.
Interestingly, the closing shot is kind of cool; no doubt meant to be one of those Twilight Zone “aha” moments that ties the whole thing together and makes it worthwhile...but it doesn’t. What it does is confirm my theory that From Dusk Till Dawn is one of those films that was built around a money shot - but it lacks the intended punch, thanks to a complete lack of dramatic investment. My advice is, if you WANT to see this kind of movie, check out Dead Alive, Zombieland, or even Housebound, a delightful New Zealand film from 2014. They’re all really funny horror movies that are what they are from beginning to end, and the payoff is worth it because the investment is REAL.