6/10
Could Have Been A Little Grittier... But A Good Serio-Comedy...
9 July 2005
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... )
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