Perdita Durango

I stumbled into this film while channel surfing the other night and couldn't turn it off. There's something compelling about the performances of Javier Bardem and Rosie Perez that transform this film from what could have been a mediocre exploitation film to something well worth watching. There's a lot of original thinking here and luckily the director and editor got the mix just right to pull of a real gem. There is a mix of comedy, romance, evil, pathos and irony blended in a way to keep you off balance and always wondering what's around the next corner (what's with the fetuses?). 7 out of 10.

A psychotic criminal called Romeo Dolorosa (Javier Bardem) is a dangerous exponent of the Vodoo-like cult , Santeria , he meets his match in femme-fatal Tex-Mex , Perdita Durango (Rosie Perez) . The couple nevertheless finds time along the way and abducts a random teenager duo named Duane (Harley Cross) and Estelle (Aimee Graham) for a forced march on the wild side . The woman rapes the male captive, and lets him watch his lover being raped by the man. They then plan to sacrifice the couple . The story kicks in when Romeo has to transport a lorryload of live foetuses across the border , being relentlessly pursued by a stubborn officer ,Willie 'Woody' Dumas , (James Gandolfini) .

This hallucinatory weirdness is a full-on surreal action movie with a wild ride that blends thrills , a lot of fun , sleazeball local color , suspense , tension as well as an intriguing script full of underlying seriousness , horror , comedy and embarrassing situations . Packed with scenes of disagreeable nature , this fantasy-fuelled is exciting as well as frightening , as we follow the strange situations of a peculiar couple and a pair of teens whose destination is dictated by terrible events . The picture is rated ¨R¨ for its crude violence , grisly killings , lashings of sexual abandon , lots of nudism , gore and guts . The narration is so filled with quirk characters , crazy violence mixed with diabolic elements and an underlying sense of horror and gore , and it is so excessive and plenty of surprises, one can't help but keep watching, much as it is over the top in many an occasion . In the picture there is a marvelous homage by inter-cutting of footage from Robert Aldrich's excellent Mexican Western ¨Veracruz¨ and its main actor , Burt Lancaster . Overacting and excessive acting by Javier Bardem as Santero Romeo Dolorosa and nice acting by Rosie Perez as Tex-Mex Perdita who was first incarnated by Isabella Rosselini at ¨David Lynch's Wild and heart¨ also based in a novel by Barry Gifford . Javier Bardem and Carlos Bardem got badly burnt due to excessive gunpowder and a badly synchronized explosion caused by a special effects technician ; another crew member got second and third degree burns in 80% of his body . Very good support cast plenty of familiar faces such as Don Stroud as Santos , Demian Bichir as Catalina , Carlos Bardem -Javier's brother- as Reggie San Pedro , Screamin' Jay Hawkins as Adolfo , Santiago Segura as Shorty Dee and special mention to recently deceased the great James Gandolfini . Good cinematography by Flabio Martinez Labiano , excellent cameraman of ¨Non-stop , Unknown , Day of Beast , Time crimes , 800 bullets¨ , among others ; he's Alex De La Iglesia's usual photographer . Thrilling and stirring musical score by Simon Boswell .

Spanish filmmaker Alex De La Iglesia tackles efficiently the further adventures of Perdita , being compellingly directed and it barely quickens the pulse , though 'Bigas Luna' was first slated to direct the film . When Bigas was due to direct the film, Madonna, Javier Bardem and Dennis Hopper were his first choices to play the main roles . Alex De La Iglesia is a cool director who has got much success as ¨Accion Mutante¨ ,¨Dying of laughter¨ or ¨Muertos De Risa¨ , ¨Baby's room¨ , ¨Oxford murders¨ , ¨Balada Triste De Una Trompeta¨ and this ¨Perdita Durango¨ is probably the weirdest Javier Bardem film ever made , being De La Iglesia's English-language debut shot in USA . And of course 'La Comunidad' obtained the unanimous praise of both the critics and the public and results to be a lot of fun, especially for those who enjoy surrealist humor , it won several Goya prizes and a turning point in his meteoric career ; from then on he became his own producer, beginning with '800 bullets' (2002) through the Pánico Films company . Winner of several Goyas (Spanish Oscars), however his movies have not yet reached box office in USA, but he has strong followers , as his films have a kind of comic edge to them . In ¨Perdita Durango¨ there is nonsense, ridicule , violence , sex , absurdity , disturbing scenes and many other issues ; you can find everything in this flick . It captures the essence of the best Álex De La Iglesia, a filmmaker who, at this point in his own story, is respected and admired worldwide and has the most committed fans in the film universe . This is without a doubt a thrilling and enjoyable movie to be enjoyed for thriller buffs and Alex De Iglesia fans.

Right after the success of his masterpiece, the dark comedy "El Dia De la Bestia", Spanish director Alex De la Iglesia took a stab at Hollywood with this wild ride of marvelous insanity and bizarre entertainment. Sadly, the resulting movie was severely cut in the U.S. and the U.K. and didn't had the expected results as many labeled as another Tarantino-style film. While at first sight "Perdita Durango" indeed looks like a rip off of the movies by the Tarantino-Rodriguez tandem, this really black comedy is more a witty satire than a serious action flick.

The film is the story of Perdita Durango (Rosie Perez), a young criminal who one night meets Romeo Dolorosa (Javier Bardem), a crazed priest of an extreme form of Santeria who makes a life doing jobs for the mob. They fall in love and Perdita comes along in Romeo's latest job: the traffic of human fetuses for the cosmetic industry. On their trip, they kidnap two American teenagers for Romeo's human sacrifices. However, things go wrong as a DEA agent (James Gandolfini) follows them closely and the kidnapped teens try to escape.

Based on Barry Gifford's novel of the same name, the movie follows the criminal couple's adventure in the style of a road trip movie with the two couples (the criminals and their victims) as main characters. I can't tell how faithful the movie is to the novel, but it is definitely closer to Gifford's previous film adaptation, David Lynch's "Wild at Heart" than to the Tarantino films that are often compared to it. The movie is charged with black humor and disturbing violence, and is a brilliant satire of modern society.

Alex De la Iglesia crafts a film that is at the same time disturbing and funny, and he plays with those two very different emotions with very good results. The pacing of the movie is very good although it is true that at times it feels a bit disjointed. Still, De la Iglesia manages to tell an intelligent and different story than what we are used to. On a side note, the edited A-Pix version is missing what is probably the most important moment of the film due to copyright troubles, so to fully appreciate the film, the 125 version is the way to go.

The acting is good for the most part, with Javier Bardem showing exactly why is he considered the best Spanish actor of his generation; his Romeo Delarosa is one of the best performances of his career. Rosie Perez is effective, but at times it feels as if she weren't up to the challenge, something that hurts the film badly, as she is the main character. Harley Cross and Aimee Graham are very believable as the kidnapped teens and show potential for comedy, but the real joy comes from supporting actors Gandolfini and a surprising Screamin' Jay Hawkins.

Personally, I liked the film a lot and it is a personal favorite, but I must be fair and point out that it is not a perfect film. Alex De la Iglesia's main mistake is to focus too much on Romeo Delarosa's character, almost to the point where Rosie Perez almost becomes a supporting actress. The fact that Bardem's acting is enormously superior doesn't really help Perez' performance. On another point, the movie seems to lose steam at the last point, and while it does recover some of its initial power, the edited versions definitely take out this final improvement.

As written above, this is a personal favorite, and while I wouldn't recommend it to everybody (due to its disturbing images), I would definitely recommend it to fans of black comedies, disturbing thrillers and overall bizarre film-making in general. 8/10

Following the success of El Dia De Bestia and Accion mutante, once again the director pursues the nature of dark obsession. The two main leads are dysfunctional amoral sadists who re in some ways rediscovering a part of them that they miss - love.

It's a story of trying to move on but the main characters are very amoral however there's darker circles than them, which pulls them further down the spiral. In essence this movie is an antithesis of a glamour Mafia movie and I believe represents Mafia dealings in a very dark fashion. In some ways I believe there's a nod to David Lynch with the actor playing the Mafia boss.

The film is not a sick puppy nor is it banal. For those that have followed this director they will read between the lines to discover some salient points of US government intervention out of the states and human traffic - in this case embryos used for beauty products. Like 'clean Madrid' in El Dia de Bestia there were fascist movements in the capital at the time. Iglaisia puts this on the screen as a cultural reminder.

Watching this movie at face value will seem very ultra violent and in some places extremely disturbing. Unlike other cult producers like Tarintino Iglasia uses a loot of cult cultural references to make his films extremely dark and funny (like La Communidad). If you're Latin or Spanish I feel there would be a lot more in this movie for you. Recommended viewing - but not for the faint hearted.

I saw six movies in three days at my first Toronto Film Festival -- this one last, after a slow-moving Japanese film, "Afterlife" (which I also enjoyed, and the pace of which set up this film wonderfully). I saw this uncut and on the big screen, and it shot right through my veins like an amphetamine from a slingshot. Javier Bardem is one of those rare actors who is so good, who disappears so far into his roles, that a lot of people still don't know him. Pity -- he's the pivot of this film, the steady-burning sun around which equally dazzling Rosie Perez throbs in her mad ecliptic orbit. The acting is, in fact -- in spite of what you're reading elsewhere here -- perfectly pitched in all quarters. I managed to get an uncut video copy online a few years back from ebay, and it IS true, the movie loses a bit in the translation from big-screen to small, but trust me, it's still a wild ride. I left the theater feeling like I'd been set on fire with gasoline and Vaseline.