800 Bullets

Alex de la Iglesia is probably one of SPain's finest filmmakers. An artist that can deliver such masterpieces as El dia de la bestia is really worth following. Here he derails with a tale the takes too long to unfold nd takes the spectator nowhere. Alex major problem lies always with the scripting of his films. Hs first film spent half of its footage presenting us a group of characters that were then killed so that the story could go in a different different direction. Same mistake here. The story starts and evolves then stops and then starts again in a different direction, etc. We are never heading in a concrete direction. The filmmaker gets lost among all the characters and their troubles never deciding which route to take. He is a good craftsman, and the film is above average in the technical department, still it's pretty boring, unusually so for a De La Iglesia comedy.

Alex De la Iglesia is an excellent Spanish director . He had much success such as "Accion Mutante" , " El Dia de la Bestia", "Perlita Durango" and ¨La Comunidad¨ , among others . Here deals with a homage to Spaghetti/Paella Western and other American Westerns shot in Spain . Julian Torralba/Sancho Gracia is an ex-movie stuntman living in Almeria . Julian and his colleagues once made a busy living in Spaghetti Westerns shot in Spain ; nowadays , they are reduced to do stunt-shows for small audiences on the decaying set built for those old Westerns . Here Sancho Gracia , who made several Westerns during the 60s and 70s , plays an old man who brings a village back to life , which the bad guys want to sell to speculators . Sancho Gracia , his friends and grandson must fight against the polices and baddies to obtain their purports . The final showdown between Sancho Gracia and Angel De Andrés López is overwhelming and exciting.

In the film there is comedy , tongue-in-cheek , humour , drama , noisy action , nudism , and results to be very entertaining . Filmmaker Alex De La Iglesia tries to pay tribute to Spaghetti Western , that's why he wished its main star , Clint Eastwood , to play himself as a cameo or special appearance , Alex even offered to move to Los Angeles to shot his part ; Clint , who was then working on the direction of ¨Blood work¨ (2002), was forced to turn down this sympathetic offer . Main cast is pretty good , such as Sancho Gracia , Carmen Maura and Angel Andrés López . Support cast is frankly enjoyable , including Alex De Iglesia's ordinary secondaries , such as : Manuel Tallafé , Eusebio Poncela , Enrique Martínez , Eduardo Gómez and the great Terele Pávez . Evocative production design shot on location in Desert of Tabernas , Almería , Andalucía , where during the sixties and early seventies lots of Spaghetti/Paella Westerns were filmed . Alex De La Iglesia's direction is rightly made , he called it as a ¨Western Marmitako¨ , it is a special food from Basque Country , where Alex was born . Besides , cinematography by Flavio Labiano is splendid and Roque Baños' musical score is breathtaking , though it imitates Ennio Morricone . Rating : 6.5/10 Good . Better than average . Well worth seeing .

The 12 year-old Carlos fools his rich corporate mom (who thinks he's on a skiing trip) and goes lookin' for his grandfather, an alcoholic stuntman who worked with Sergio Leone and Eastwood in the 60's. The grandfather and other boozehounds do daily Western shows for German and Japanese tourists, every nite they're out whoring and partying and they take Carlos with'em. Carlos's mom (Almodovar's regular Carmen Maura) hates her dad and wants to close down the shows in the Western town, but then the 'cowboys' band together and defend their lives and town, this time with REAL bullets instead of blanks. "800 Bullets" is a wildly entertaining 'light' comedy loaded with Iglesia's brand of anarchic humor. Since this film isn't that violent (compared to his other films) and if the sex and nudity was removed, "800 Bullets" could pass a feel-good-comedy-for-the-family! Joe Dante meets Fellini? It's not his best and its way too long at 121 mins, the silly and serious antics are an uneven mix, but "800 Bullets" is a must for fans of Iglesia. Most outrageous scene: 12 year-old Carlos' cheerful sexual debut with a hooker and her bouncing boobies!?! Only in Spain! I miss Iglesia-regular Santiago "Torrente" Segura though, he'd have been perfect as a scummy drunken cowboy.

"800 Balas" is another funny and cool movie from Spanish director Alex de la Iglesia, the guy who did the absolutely wonderful "El Dia de la Bestia", one of the best comedy/terror movies ever made. But I must tell you, people, if you don't speak Spanish, no matter how accurate the subtitles will be, you're missing half of the fun. And I mean Spanish from Spain, literally, because here in Argentina we speak Spanish too but in a complete different form and mood. Spanish people are hilarious when they insult each other (and there's a lot here) using some expressions that just can't be translated, like "me cago en la puta leche". But it's a funny and well delivered film no matter the language. A kind of homage to spaghetti westerns and all those little cheap movies from the 60's done with an excellent cast. Recommended.

I rented this one on a hunch, not having watched any of director De La Iglesia's work, even if I had heard of him - if not the film in question.

I thought this was going to be an out-and-out Spaghetti Western update, and it looks like it at first, but the way it developed makes it original and even more interesting than I had imagined! It's frequently uproarious and displays a refreshing irreverence, especially in its use of foul language (which I found even funnier because it's so similar to our own); astoundingly, there are also sex scenes witnessed by, and almost involving, a minor! Deliberately paced and overlong, it ultimately emerges as an endearing, even infectious, spoof of Spaghetti Western film-making and the world of stunt-men (which to me, having been in Hollywood a little while back, has a special relevance). Recurring jokes like forgetting the hanged man once the shooting's over, a stuntman dedicated to making his fall from a roof-top as realistic as possible, and the front of a poor woman's house being demolished by a runaway van are very funny, and there's a hilarious funeral finale with a surprising appearance by "Clint Eastwood" (who, as everyone knows, became a household word in Italian Westerns filmed in Spain)!

The cast is largely made up of unknowns (except for Carmen Maura) but they enter enthusiastically into the tongue-in-cheek spirit of things, with Sancho Gracia's characterization being especially vivid (at times, even a moving one). Indeed, among the various in-jokes which crop up throughout the film is the mention of the Raquel Welch/Burt Reynolds Western 100 RIFLES (1969), a film in which Gracia really appeared!