Flesh and Bullets

Needless to say that I hadn't heard about this 1985 movie titled "Flesh and Bullets" prior to stumbling upon it here in 2024. And with it being a movie that I hadn't already seen, much less actually heard about, of course I opted to check out what writer and director Carlos Tobalina had to offer.

Turns out that it wasn't really all that much. Sure, it was a pretty straightforward storyline. But the movie was just so terribly constructed and even worse so edited that it was a difficult movie to sit through. It felt like writer and director Carlos Tobalina virtually had no sense of how to compile a movie and give it a natural flow.

The acting performances in the movie were pretty wooden and rigid. The delivery of the dialogue, which was laughably poorly written by the way, was done pretty much without much of any conviction. So it was a rather lackluster experience to bear witness to the performances on the screen. The movie actually have some familiar faces on the cast list, but not in any leading roles though. The movie had the likes of Cesar Romero, Yvonne De Carlo and Robert Z'Dar on the cast list.

The lovemaking scenes were particularly cringeworthy, especially the extreme moaning and groaning that was going on.

The editing in the movie was rather brutal. The movie had really abrupt cuts between scenes and it made the narrative feel like it was limping around most of the time.

"Flesh and Bullets" was by no means a cinematic masterpiece that I had been missing out on for the past 39 years, by not watching it before here in 2024. And believe me when I say that this is definitely not a movie that I will ever return to watch a second time. Nor is it a movie that I would recommend for you to waste your time, money and effort on.

My rating of writer and director Carlos Tobalina's 1985 movie "Flesh and Bullets" lands on a most generous two out of ten stars.

Horrible movie. Who'd have thought a movie would make me wish I was watching Throw Momma From The Train. When ranking Strangers on a Train rip-offs this movie is so far below the bottom that it's in the basement.

Two guys are to murder each other's ex-wives but instead end up in sexual relationships with the ex-wives, making it difficult to pull off the murders. That sentence makes the movie sound far more intriguing than it actually is.

For a taste of just how horrible the writing is you just need to watch the scene where one of the ex-wives tells her lover/killer that she was once raped by Robert Z'Dar. His response? "At least he has good taste." No wonder she's so much in love with him.

Just no redeeming qualities here. Writing, direction, editing, acting, everything is just horrible. Not even so bad it's good. Just so bad it should never be seen by anybody.

Flesh and Bullets (1985)

** (out of 4)

Two losers casual meet in Las Vegas and get to talking about their lives and realize that they have a lot in common. The most common thing is that both of them are being taken to the cleaner by their ex-wives who got them for a lot of money in their divorces. The men agree to knock off each other's ex but in the process they both fall in love with them and want to back out of their deals.

Carlos Tobalina had directed a number of porno films up to this point in his career but he wanted to try his hand at a "mainstream" feature so he made this low-budget picture, which is basically a take-off on Alfred Hitchcock's STRANGERS ON A TRAIN. This film offers up some nudity, some mild sex scenes as well as some veteran cast members but at the end of the day there's just nothing overly special about it.

The film has an extremely cheap feel to it and in all honesty it looks and feels like the porno movies that were made during this period. Tobalina certainly wasn't able to bring any style to this movie and in fact his direction is pretty weak throughout as there's never any erotic feel, there's certainly no tension and I'd argue that there's not too many good things going on. With that said, the film is far from awful as its cheapness does have a certain charm about it.

The main reason to check this film out is due to the cast, which includes some rather famous faces in small roles. You've got the likes of Yvonne De Carlo, Cesar Romero, Cornel Wilde (straight out of retirement) and Aldo Ray as well as cult sensation Mai Lin playing a hooker. Seeing these famous faces pop up throughout the running time is certainly entertaining and they almost make the picture worth sitting through.

FLESH AND BULLETS isn't a horrible movie but it's not a very good one either. If you're a fan of low-budget films like it then you'll want to check it out.

Back 30 years before in 1955 a film that would have starred Cornel Wilde, Yvonne DeCarlo, Cesar Romero and Aldo Ray might have made a few shekels at the box office. But if Marty McFly had brought these four stars forward in time to 1985 all four might have wept at where their careers had gone after seeing Flesh And Bullets.

Could all four of them been that desperate for a paycheck that year that they agreed to appear in this. Opposite 4 leads who never did anything else of note. Seeing that the director of this film cut his teeth in the porn industry I wonder if the leads made their bones there as well.

Two guys who are being slammed with alimony and child support meet at a bar and decide to kill each others wives the better to obscure the motive. But both meet their targets and fall in love with their targets. But both also fear the other will kill them if the agreement isn't carried out.

The direction is non-existent and I've seen better acting at the high school assembly plays. If you have a sadistic frame of mind you might look to see the pained expressions on all four stars faces as they give us their lines. All of them look like they're ready for a trip to the Emergency Room.

And God knows what Hitchcock would have thought had he been still alive to see what trash they made of his Strangers On A Train.

Wow. I am not sure where to begin. Top-billed "special performances by" Yvonne DeCarlo is literally in one shot. Cesar Romero does slightly better with two shots. Poor Cornel Wilde (with a bad hair dye) and Aldo Ray appear in two short, poorly lit, poorly shot, poorly framed, poor sound recorded scenes. Now onto the good stuff: I actually found the two male leads compelling. Glenn McKay and Mic Morrow have no other credits on IMDB, but they're actually quite good. The film itself, in some strange way, drew me in. It was much better than I expected it to be. Like one of the other reviewers said, I saw the Variety add back in the day and was curious about the cast. I doubt this film got any playdates at all, despite the "theatrical" trailer included on the DVD. I could see myself sitting through this one again.