Misplaced Loyalty - FROM DUSK TILL DAWN

Everyone has had a shitty friend in their life.  That guy who you have known forever, who can make you laugh and has your back, but who will not stop fucking up.  Being a decent person, you have the urge to help your friend out of his problems, or at least minimize the pain.  Fight that urge.  Your shitty friend is the only person who can fix his own problems.  Support and encouragement are fine, but getting caught up in his mess can lead you both down the wrong road.  Sometimes that road leads to a ruined reputation and feelings of betrayal.  Other times, as with Robert Rodriguez's FROM DUSK TILL DAWN, it can lead to a strip club full of vampires.
 

The Capsule:

Half of Texas is on the hunt for the notorious Gecko brothers, but Seth (George Clooney) has a plan to get himself, his hair-trigger, sexual predator brother, Richie (Quinten Tarantino), and a briefcase full of ill-gotten gains across the Mexican border.  They forcefully persuade the Fuller family, fallen preacher Jacob (Harvey Keitel), daughter Kate (Juliette Lewis) and son Scott (Ernest Liu) to ferry them over in their RV.  After scamming their way past the Boarder Patrol guard (Cheech Marin), the fugitives end up at the Titty Twister, a sleazy strip bar with an obnoxious, pussy hawking door man (Cheech Marin), and wait for Seth’s contact, Carlos (Cheech Marin).   Carlos should have picked a better rendezvous, because the bar happens to be run by a pack of vampires, luring in crowds of juicy lowlifes for their queen, Santanico Pandemonium (Salma Hyek) to feed upon.  Seth and company, along with tough guys Frost (Fred Williamson) and Sex Machine (Ted Savini), survive the first round, but find themselves trapped in the bar with a hoard of hungry, pissed off vamps clawing at the door.  They are going to need every trick in the vampire book if anyone is going to make it till dawn.

Seth Gecko is a decent guy.  Well, not decent, per say.  Pretty terrible, when you think about it.  He will remorselessly fuck up anybody standing between him and freedom.  Just ask poor Pete Bottoms (John Hawkes), which you can’t, as he is just a crispy corpse smoldering in the ruins of Benny's Liquor World.  As mean and determined as he is, Seth has a code.  He doesn’t kill anyone he doesn’t have to.  He tries to calm people down, and he seems to be a man of his word.  Plus, it is impossible for George Clooney not to be charming.  His greatest fault, murdering and bank robbing aside, is blind loyalty to his asshole brother.  

From his first moment on screen, you know Richie Gecko is a douchebag.  This is partially because he is played by Tarantino, who is the Anti-Clooney.  His entire acting career consists of douchebag roles.  I’m not trying to be cruel, I consider the man to be one of the most vital cinematic forces in recent history, but his character choices speak for themselves.  Besides, he writes most of his own roles, so he's clearly working something out.  Still, Richie is the creepiest Tarantino has ever been.  It’s not his loudmouthed, hotheaded tantrums that make him scary, though someone is most likely going to die as a result.  Richie is most frightening when he is being shy, quiet, and polite to a woman, any woman.  This means something really bad is coming.

Seth has set himself up as his brother’s keeper, protectively looking after the little fuck up to the point of reminding Richie to put in his mouth guard (he grinds his teeth).  He has no problem calling Richie out on his shit, like asking if he knows the meaning of “low profile” while they are walking away from an exploding gas station.  Most of the time, Seth reacts to his brother’s behavior with a head shake (or a quick knockout punch when he won’t shut up), but he is genuinely shocked to witness the aftermath of Richie’s most repulsive tendencies.  Violence against women is clearly against his code, but it is outweighed by his misguided loyalty to his brother.  Seth dresses down Richie for his horrific behavior like a disappointed father or owner of a misbehaving dog.  He seems to be fooling himself that his words will actually change anything.  The second Seth throws a very young Juliette Lewis into the mix, Richie is right back on track to become a monster again. 

In a way, the vampire massacre is a huge tension release, realigning a troubling trajectory into ridiculous, blood-soaked fun.  Plus, it brings Richie to a much-deserved comeuppance in the form of Santanico Pandemonium (one of the all-time coolest villain names).  As soon as the vamp queen begins to dance, wrapped in her albino python, Richie is powerless one.  She proceeds to completely debase the delusional sex predator, playing off his toe fetish by shoving her foot into his mouth (and the Titty Twister doesn’t seem like the kind of place that keeps a clean floor).  To top it off, she spits tequila into his open mouth, making Richie no more than a desperate, begging baby bird.  As soon as Seth notices something is up and puts Richie back on the clock, Santanico dispenses with the cat and mouse, transforms into a snake headed monster and [spoiler] chomps down on the sad little pervert’s neck.

On a side note: there is a distinct possibility that Salma Hayek may truly be a vampire, because she remains every ounce as fierce and sexy 18 years later in EVERLY as she was in 1996.  To highlight my point, the Titty Twister also employs a fresh-faced young Danny Trejo as the demonic bartender.  He's still just as much of a badass, but appearance wise, Trejo more resembles a grizzled chainsaw wood carving these days. 

Seth does get to avenge Richie [spoiler], dispatching Santanico surprisingly (and regretfully) early.  Rodriguez gives the knife and extra twist by forcing Seth to take out his newly risen vamp brother.  Serves him right, the enabling bastard.  A good brother would have confronted Richie about his violent tendencies right from the start and gotten him help.  A good brother wouldn’t have coddled him, and let him go on doing what he was doing.  Of course, good brothers generally don’t rob banks and murder so many people, either.  In the context of this movie, though, unwarranted devotion is Seth's greatest crime.

I’ve been thinking a lot about shitty friends and poor decisions lately.  That was the unofficial theme of this year’s Fantastic Fest, the eight day genre film festival in Austin, TX (see my half-assed coverage here) that was marred by scandal this year. The man behind all the controversy is Tim League.  League, founder of the Alamo Drafthouse chain of theaters, Drafthouse Films, co-founder of the Fest, and all-around champion of cinema, made a colossally dumbass decision that cast a shadow on all aspects of his business.  Like Seth, his failing is due to misguided loyalty to a shitty friend.  A year ago, disgraced film critic and harassing bully, Devin Faraci, left his role as editor-in-chief of Birth, Movies, Death, the film magazine connected to the Drafthouse, after allegations of sexual assault came to light.  Unbeknownst to almost everyone, League quietly rehired Faraci shortly afterwards, in a lower profile position.  League may have only been trying help a friend through a period of soul searching and alcohol recovery, but by covering his up his action and letting Faraci remain in the environment where he caused so much harm, League essentially made the respect and safety of his female patrons, staff, and the larger film community a lesser concern.   Adding to the damage, it came out during the Fest that League also disregarded sexual harassment complaints about another Drafthouse associate, the mighty internet nerd and human Jabba the Hutt, Harry Knowles.  

The bright side of this whole mess is that it got a lot of people talking about the rampant inequality and harassment of women in the industry and in general society.  There were debates and discussions throughout the Fest, people shared stories and came together online, and least importantly, I’m talking about it here.  Faraci resigned again, writers abandoned Knowles’ flagship site Ain’t It Cool News, and League has apologized and embarked on a pilgrimage across the country to personally speak with- and hopefully listen to- his employees about how to improve the situation.  The gesture doesn’t redeem him by a long shot, but it at least continues the conversation.

I admit, the FROM DUSK TILL DAWN analogy is shaky.  League’s crimes were of omission and deception rather than of bullets and lighter fluid.  Faraci hasn’t been killed by Salma Hayek, yet.  The results boil down the same, though.  Don’t protect your shitty friends, they don’t deserve it, and you just wind up making it worse for everyone.  

C Chaka