From Dusk Till Dawn 2: Texas Blood Money (1999. dir: Scott Spiegel) Straight off: Robert Patrick is good in everything, and I'm not just talking the ever-classic T-1000. He works hard, throws himself face-first into some outlandishly difficult roles. Things that, when he read the script, he must have thought, "This is just embarrassing." But he's one of those guys, like Walken, like McHattie, those Working Actors. The guys who never say no. You gotta hand it to them. You gotta, in fact, love 'em.
And he's good in this.
That's my preamble on the actor. Now, about the movie.
I'd say at least half, probably more, of folks who watch the first From Dusk Till Dawn come away unimpressed, even scornful. It's a tough ride, grinding away at your suspension of disbelief with its nonstop gore, fetishistic violence, and flights into absurdity. It is, at the same time, groundbreaking, not least for its dyptych shape: the first half is Natural Born Killers and Tarantino bloodlust, the second is bloodlust of the crazy Mexican vampire variety. The cast is great, and Rodriguez's intoxicating combination of mastery over detail and jubilant playfulness elevates even this ridiculously violent blood-bath into an exuberant game.
This first sequel (there are two, plus a television series) is not so lucky. The director, Spiegel, he put his back into it, I have to say. There are death sequences, like the opening in which Tiffani Thiessen is killed by a swarm of bats in an elevator, or that of the obligatory, post-coital, Mexican beauty being bat-killed in the shower, which are composed of literally thousands of quick shots. The shower scene in particular stands as a sort of gleeful tribute to Hitchcock and Psycho. It also stands as proof positive that if you haven't made us care about a story or your characters, fancy cinematic tricks will leave us totally cold.
It is certainly not devoid of friskiness and mischief, but the success of the first one has been set into formula. A criminal gang is mobilized to rob a Mexican bank, vampires (in the form of Danny Trejo and kin) intrude about about forty minutes in to "change" the murderous gang-leader, causing a domino effect until the climactic endgame involves the Mexican police-force, along with one dogged Texas ranger (Bo Hopkins) and the last human criminal (Patrick), waging an all-out war against the four criminal-vamps still inside the bank. Even its coltish exuberance takes on rote dimensions: continuous shots from inside ribcages and skulls, for instance, get old, and probably took more effort to create than was worthwhile. The conversational quirks of the criminals before they turn (discussing a porn film, for instance), have nothing of the spark and delight of the Tarantino-talk which the script is obviously trying to emulate.
Muse Watson, Hopkins, the ever-great Trejo, and, of course, Patrick, lead a decent cast, but the story sort of throws itself whole-hog into mayhem, then disappears up its own metaphorical asshole without ever, well, reappearing.
the Forgotten City (the Vivero Letter): (1999. dir: H. Gordon Boos) This is a dreadful movie, really awful, with nothing to offer outside a couple of good actors slumming and some pretty jungle scenery. It wants to be a Roger Corman B-film, but lacks that odd and irrepressible combination of whimsy, shamelessness and pragmatism which comprise the Corman je-ne-sais-quoi.
An everyman insurance guy (Patrick) is lured to Mexico by an enigmatic call from his estranged brother, and, once there, finds himself embroiled in a treasure hunt alongside a beautiful archeologist and a dying zillionaire explorer (Fred Ward). The plot makes no sense, there are a couple of gratuitous tit shots thrown awkwardly in, some explosions and gunfights, lots of dying, and an utterly ridiculous happy ending. There is no actual reason to watch it, in fact, unless you're trying to overcome a stubborn animus-fixation on Norman Reedus by watching everything that Robert Patrick has ever done. Which is crazy, and why would anyone ever do that? so forget I even mentioned it.
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