In the wry, quirky little comedy,"800 Bullets," a young boy named Carlos goes in search of his paternal grandfather, a former movie stuntman whose claim to fame is serving as Clint Eastwood's double in the heyday of the spaghetti western - a fact he has been trying to parlay into a lucrative career for well over thirty years now, long after the western -spaghetti or otherwise - disappeared as a viable genre. But, oh, how the might have fallen, for when Carlos arrives, he finds Julian barely eking out a living working at what is little more than a broken down tourist trap - a long-abandoned western set stuck out in the middle of the Spanish desert where he and a small band of likeminded misfits put on a tawdry gunslinger show for the few paying customers who happen to wander their way. Carlos is, of course, thrilled with what he finds there - a world right out of the past replete with hangman's noose and functioning brothel - but trouble begins when his mother, a real estate developer who holds Julian responsible for the death of her husband in a stunt accident years earlier, buys the place and threatens to bulldoze it to make way for a spanking new theme park she's planning to build. It is at this point that Julian chooses to make a stand, buying 800 real bullets, gathering together his forces, and turning the site into his own mini-Alamo where he gets to participate in his very own shootout on main street with real guns and real ammo.
"800 Bullets" is fun right up until the moment when the actual shooting starts, then it turns heavy-handed and silly, trotting out that old chestnut about how only a fine line separates reality from fantasy - or, more accurately in this case, real life from celluloid life - and how only truly eccentric people ever get to cross it. But Sancho Gracia gives a wonderful performance as the craggy old has-been determined to prove himself a hero to his adoring grandson. Moreover, the setting is novel, the concept original, and the execution lighthearted and fast paced. It's true that at 121 minutes the movie is longer than it needs to be, and the closing scenes smack of last minute desperation on the part of the screenwriter. But director Alex de la Iglesia conveys a real affection for the conventions and style of those pasta-filled westerns from thirty and forty years ago - an affection that many moviegoers past and present frankly share.
(One caveat, however: there is a scene in the film in which the young boy fondles a prostitute's breast that would probably be considered child pornography if it were made in the United States).
"800 Bullets" is fun right up until the moment when the actual shooting starts, then it turns heavy-handed and silly, trotting out that old chestnut about how only a fine line separates reality from fantasy - or, more accurately in this case, real life from celluloid life - and how only truly eccentric people ever get to cross it. But Sancho Gracia gives a wonderful performance as the craggy old has-been determined to prove himself a hero to his adoring grandson. Moreover, the setting is novel, the concept original, and the execution lighthearted and fast paced. It's true that at 121 minutes the movie is longer than it needs to be, and the closing scenes smack of last minute desperation on the part of the screenwriter. But director Alex de la Iglesia conveys a real affection for the conventions and style of those pasta-filled westerns from thirty and forty years ago - an affection that many moviegoers past and present frankly share.
(One caveat, however: there is a scene in the film in which the young boy fondles a prostitute's breast that would probably be considered child pornography if it were made in the United States).