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Highly Overrated But Still Good

Absolutely Brilliant!

It's entirely possible that sending the audience out feeling lousy was intentional

if their story seems completely bonkers, almost like a feverish work of fiction, you ain't heard nothing yet.

This homage to Spaghetti Westerns (those films made mostly in the 60s in Spain under Italian directors and actors using English names) could have been a bit better. Directed by Spanish director (and infant terrible) Alex de la Iglesia, it starts as the story of a boy who leaves his home in order to search his paternal grandfather, Julian (Spanish veteran actor Sancho Gracia), a former movie stuntman who worked in those westerns and whose main claim to fame is to having been Clint Eastwood's double in some of those movies (he even had speaking parts in some of those, he claims). Spaghetti westerns are long gone, but the grandfather still ekes out a living working as a stuntman in a decrepit theme park in southern Spain dedicated to the American West. However, as the park attracts few visitors, developers (including the boy's mother, played by Almodovar regular Carmen Maura) are planning to bulldoze the place and build a new park. Julian, who originally received his grandson reluctantly, decides to fight back among his coworkers, with 800 real bullets, and a real gunfight erupts. The movie is not bad, but it becomes less interesting at times, and it fails to hit the right tone. Best bit: "Clint Eastwood"'s cameo at the end. Note: the film contains a scene where the boy is fondled by a naked woman that would be considered illegal in most countries (I don't know how they did get away with that).

800 BULLETS (3 outta 5 stars) Interesting little comedy-drama from Spain about an old western movie set in Almeria, populated with aging and forgotten stuntmen who put on live western shows for tourists. The grandson of Julian, their leader (Sancho Gracia), sneaks off to visit... trying to find out something about his dead father who accidentally died on a movie set years ago. The boy's mother (Carmen Maura) realizes that the town is a perfect location to set up a fabulous vacation resort and buys the town, putting the stuntmen out of work and leaving them no recourse but to put real bullets in their guns and make a stand. Sancho Gracia really carries this movie on his shoulders, playing the guilt-ridden "star" of the show... the rumour is that his son died because of his negligence. I wish the movie had been a little more realistic at times... the other stuntmen (and women) of the town are played a little too comically... when the time comes for the real violence to happen they don't really make a believable transition to desperate gunmen. It also becomes a bit unbelievable when the bullets start flying and no one seems to get seriously hurt. Still, the movie has some fine moments and a few very strange ones... like the 12 year old boy in bed with a prostitute... you'd never see THAT in an American movie! Western fans will be amused at some of the references (verbal and musical) to the old "spaghetti westerns"... but the movie's visual style seems more akin to '50s Hollywood westerns. (As a side note, how cool would it have been to have the character portrayed in the last scene of the movie actually played by HIMSELF? I'd definitely have been on my feet cheering... )

After COMUNIDAD, I was prepared to watch anything this lot did. Well ten minutes in, it was being brought home to me that this one was even better.First surprise, the always watchable Carmen Maura's part is quite minor and while I must have seen Sancho Gracia half a dozen times, including some of my favorite movies like MARTIN H and COMUNIDAD, I'd never realized what a great screen presence he could be.Big surprise however is how completely the film sucks you in. The Euro-Cowboy movie imagery - complete with the half animated drawings of the titles, backed by THE GODD THE BAD AND THE UGLY music - carries the spectator away in the opening, with the bogus Yak Canutt transfer to the speeding horse team and particularly the bender where the stunt show regulars with tomato picker Indians go on a horse back rampage, financed by Maura's 12 year old's Visa card.We love these people and wish we knew them when we were twelve, despite the fact that they keep on telling us that what they do is a tacky imitation of something that was often a tacky imitation in itself. The grandfather is prepared to sell out the kid to preserve his waster way of life, the kid is spoiled rotten, the whore, who is the most decent character in the film, is bent on corrupting the kid. Half his luck - everyone picks up on that scene.The shoot-out with eight hundred real bullets is great but they can't figure out where to go from there and the rest is an anticlimactic attempt to redeem the characters we admire for their corruption.My only regret is I can't see this one on the big screen where it's action material must have been awesome.

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.