From Dusk Till Dawn stars Quentin Tarantino and George Clooney in a Robert Rodriguez gorefest. The plot is fairly simple: Clooney and Tarantino play two thieving and murdering brothers, Seth and Richard Gecko. After robbing a bank, and trashing a liquour store on their way to the Mexican border, they "enlist" the aid of an ex-preacher Jacob Fuller (Harvey Keitel) and his two children, Kate (Juliette Lewis) and Scott (Ernest Liu).
As soon as they cross the border, they stop at a bar called Titty Twister in order to rendezvous with a gangster named Carlos (Cheech Marin in a triple role), who will offer the brothers sanctuary for a take of their loot. However, the Titty Twister is really a front for a horde of vampires, and the last 45 minutes of the movie shows the Gecko brothers and the remaining humans in the Twister fighting for their lives to survive their hosts' bloodlust.
Clooney, whose acting I've liked in the TV show E.R., is making his first leading role motion picture debut as here and I think his performance is the best. Tarantino is horrible as the mentally disturbed younger brother (and I mean this in a good way---it actually works in this movie). The rest of the cast is okay, but one doesn't go to movies like this for the thespian talent.
What does one go see such a movie for? Well, if you have strange and bizarre taste in movies (especially B-movies), you're going to love this. The humour is served black, and the bloodletting is casual. The effects are fairly convincing, and there are moments when the horror is downright hilarious. There are a lot of movies parodied and being paid homage to here, and methinks some of prody was ripped off of Gump Fiction. Some of it is purely due to the casting itself.
It is impossible not to dislike the Gecko brothers. However, right from the beginning it is clear that Seth is the "nice one", whereas Richard is the psycopathic sex offender. Seeing the aftermath of Richard raping and killing a female hostage, Seth asks "was it my fault?" Scenes like that indicate that Clooney has a lot of promise as an actor on the big screen.
This movie definitely worth watching for Clooney's performance, provided you can stomach the gore.
My companion's take on the movie:
This movie sucks. The effects are cheesy and fake. Maybe it is just a girl-thing but I would most definitely skip this one.