Álex de la Iglesia is one of the more well known Spanish directors, having achieved a lot of acclaim with his break through feature of El Dia de la Bestia (The Day of the Beast), and then continuing to produce relatively solid films, including one in the U.S. with Javier Bardem, called Perdita Durango, which received a bad rap for being too "Tarantinoish" upon its release, but if you know the director, you know he's anything but. I have liked at least to an extent every one of his features besides his latest, The Oxford Murders, which was his second stab at English language film. He could of picked a better leading man than Elijah Wood, easily, but the whole film was pretty flawed.
That said, 800 Balas was the last of his features I had yet to see outside of Muertos de Risa, which I can't seem to find anywhere. I was a bit skeptical based on the IMDB and Rottentomatoes ratings, but overall it turned out to be very, very good fun, with location shooting in Almeria, Spain, site of countless Spaghetti Westerns from the glory days of the genre. The story focuses on the lives of the mostly Spanish stuntmen who stayed after all the actors had left, and continued to lead lives with cheap sideshows that did little but offer a small reminder of the glory days to tourists. It goes about it in a fun way, which is typical of Iglesia, and there's plenty of black humor mixed in with the eventual tragedy at the end of the film. I read somewhere that Clint Eastwood was nearly involved in this, playing himself (you'd see where if you saw the film), but filming of Mystic River prevented his involvement. Overall it's a fun reminiscence on the genre, and goes beyond that in showing what kind of lives those who remained lived after everything was all gone. I think it's the kind of film that nearly everyone here would enjoy. Check it out if you at all can.
That said, 800 Balas was the last of his features I had yet to see outside of Muertos de Risa, which I can't seem to find anywhere. I was a bit skeptical based on the IMDB and Rottentomatoes ratings, but overall it turned out to be very, very good fun, with location shooting in Almeria, Spain, site of countless Spaghetti Westerns from the glory days of the genre. The story focuses on the lives of the mostly Spanish stuntmen who stayed after all the actors had left, and continued to lead lives with cheap sideshows that did little but offer a small reminder of the glory days to tourists. It goes about it in a fun way, which is typical of Iglesia, and there's plenty of black humor mixed in with the eventual tragedy at the end of the film. I read somewhere that Clint Eastwood was nearly involved in this, playing himself (you'd see where if you saw the film), but filming of Mystic River prevented his involvement. Overall it's a fun reminiscence on the genre, and goes beyond that in showing what kind of lives those who remained lived after everything was all gone. I think it's the kind of film that nearly everyone here would enjoy. Check it out if you at all can.
