Day 40 From Dusk till Dawn [1996]
Screenplay Quentin
Tarantino
Story by Robert
Kurtzman
Director Robert
Rodriguez
Cinematography Guillermo
Navarro
Music Graeme
Revell
Leads George Clooney,
Harvey Keitel, Quentin Tarantino, Juliette Lewis, Cheech Marin, Salma Hayek
Production Dimension Films, A Band
Apart, Los Hooligans Productions
IMDb 7.3/10
Rotten Tomatoes 65%
Excellent first half. It was shaping up to get
into my Hall of Film (a future feature of this blog). But then there was all
that vampire bullshit and I lost interest. What were Rodriguez (Machete, Sin
City, El Mariachi) and Tarantino thinking? I actually read a few reviews of
this to see if I was the only one who hated it, but the famous Roger Ebert, to
take one example, seems to have agreed with me. It went from classic Tarantino
to low budget horror in seconds. The film follows two brothers Seth and Richard
Gecko (Clooney and Tarantino) who have robbed a bank, with several casualties,
and continue to create a trail of crime behind them. They use a former minister’s
(Harvey Keitel) RV to get over the border and get to a biker bar, which is
their meeting place. It then turns into a shit fest which I will not explain.
It had been wonderful up until Salma Hayek finished her dance. All the
characters were appealing, Tarantino playing a psychotic rapist suited him
perfectly. I just can’t stop thinking about how good the film could have been. Perhaps
it was just for the publicity, or they ran out of ideas. Either way it is a cult
classic of sorts and both Tarantino and Rodriguez have gone on to do much
bigger and better things. Unfortunately, my ratings have been affected heavily by
the appearance of the undead. All that being said, you should definitely watch
it and make your own mind up. That is the message behind this blog after all.
Acting 3
/ 4
Writing 2.5
/ 4
Cinematography 3
/ 4
Music 3
/ 4
HWF rating 2.5 / 4