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Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
Audience Rating: Unrated
Binding: DVD
EAN: 0807839001549
Format: AC-3, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
Label: TLA Releasing
Manufacturer: TLA Releasing
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: TLA Releasing
Region Code: 1
Release Date: March 15, 2005
Running Time: 124 minutes
Sales Rank: 50373
Studio: TLA Releasing
Theatrical Release Date: 2002
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Editorial Review:
Description:
Blending wicked humor and shot in beautiful Cinescope, 800 Bullets is a hyper-stylized tribute to spaghetti westerns courtesy of cult Spanish director lex de la Iglesia . Young Carlos (Luis Castro), striking out on his own in search of his long-lost father, swipes his shrewish businesswoman mother's (Carmen Maura) credit card and sets his sights on Texas-Hollywood, a Western themed attraction that has seen better days. Carlos comes into contact with his alcoholic grandfather Julian (Sancho Gracia) a one time Clint Eastwood stunt-double who is still chasing his dreams of stardom amidst the arid dust of the Spanish desert.
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - Homage to Italian westerns could have been better
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 enfant 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).
Rating:  - (3.5 STARS) Spanish Cult Director's (Largely) Entertaining Homage to the Spaghetti Western
"Accion Mutante" "Dying of Laughter" and "Perdita Durango." As these film titles suggest, Spanish cult director �lex de la Iglesia had never made an ordinary film. Just take a look at "Perdita Durango" based on the novel by Barry Gifford (also known for his works with David Lynch). It is full of anything that mainstream Hollywood pictures would cautiously avoid to show on the screen (and the film stars Rosie Perez and Javier Bardem -- what a combination!).
Surprisingly, �lex de la Iglesia's `800 Balas' (`800 Bullets') is more accessible than his previous films, with more character-driven story and less acid satires. The film is set in `Hollywood Texas' in Almeria, Spain, an old dilapidated theme park doing Western shows for the tourists. As you know, many so-called `Spaghetti Westerns' were actually shot in this country, and "800 Bullets" is part homage to the minor genre that made Clint Eastwood worldwide famous. (And there is really a place named "Texas Hollywood" in Almeria, which inspired the story of the film.)
The film is basically about Juli�n Torralba (Sancho Gracia), down-and-out ex-stunt man bragging about his stunt works with Clint Eastwood and George C Scott in the 60s. Though his grandson Carlos admires him, eagerly listening to his stories, and loves the carefree life at the theme park in the middle of nowhere, Laura, Carlos's mother (Carmen Maura) despises Juli�n as a drunken liar in dirty clothes.
Things get serious when Laura as corporate ... Read More
Rating: - Stock up on the ammo
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 ... Read More
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