The 90's were a strange time, with a wide array of genre films. Looking back now, it almost seems as if exploitation movies had a second renaissance during that time. Thanks to the success of Quentin Tarantino's Reservoir Dogs, it let loose an avalanche of hyper stylized violent movies like Natural Born Killers, Killing Zoe, Doberman etc.. To be honest I like the risks that were taken back in the day, even if the majority of those films turned out to be serviceable. Having heard so many times about this movie in the past from many people I didn't expect this to be a dud, but unfortunately it was.
Perdita Durango is a sleazy exploitation flick with zero substance. Which would be fine if it was at least interesting. It's as if the studio got the picture greenlighted and they had to come up with a story in one week, there's a little bit of symbolism sprinkled here and there but overall there is no point to it. And that starts with the title, you'd think a movie called Perdita Durango would be mainly about the titular character. Instead it focuses on Javier Bardem's Romeo character the minute he walks into the picture. You can't blame the director, Bardem has an eclectic presence compared to the pale performance of Perez. But honestly nothing much happens with his character either: the couple kidnaps two teenagers, do questionable things with them and share their criminal wisdom, things go sideways as always in those kind of scenarios and that's pretty much it. Underwhelming was the feeling I had when the credit rolled. What soured me though is when I found out that this movie was 'inspired' by real events about a religious psychopath who tortured, sacrificed and buried dozens of people but once they snatched a white guy from the US border the authorities finally decided to maybe do something about those shenanigans. As you can tell, there is an interesting story here which could even work as a satire. But it's baffling that the producers of this film decided to go a total different route: namely in making the religious mass murderer likeable and do a fun road movie. This fits perfectly with other misguided Hollywood productions that took an appalling true crime and turn it into fast food entertainment like Michael Bay's 'Pain &Gain' or '30 Minutes or Less'. For an exploitation film it is too tame and for a drama it offers no one to care about. In short: not worth your time.
3 out of 10.
Perdita Durango is a sleazy exploitation flick with zero substance. Which would be fine if it was at least interesting. It's as if the studio got the picture greenlighted and they had to come up with a story in one week, there's a little bit of symbolism sprinkled here and there but overall there is no point to it. And that starts with the title, you'd think a movie called Perdita Durango would be mainly about the titular character. Instead it focuses on Javier Bardem's Romeo character the minute he walks into the picture. You can't blame the director, Bardem has an eclectic presence compared to the pale performance of Perez. But honestly nothing much happens with his character either: the couple kidnaps two teenagers, do questionable things with them and share their criminal wisdom, things go sideways as always in those kind of scenarios and that's pretty much it. Underwhelming was the feeling I had when the credit rolled. What soured me though is when I found out that this movie was 'inspired' by real events about a religious psychopath who tortured, sacrificed and buried dozens of people but once they snatched a white guy from the US border the authorities finally decided to maybe do something about those shenanigans. As you can tell, there is an interesting story here which could even work as a satire. But it's baffling that the producers of this film decided to go a total different route: namely in making the religious mass murderer likeable and do a fun road movie. This fits perfectly with other misguided Hollywood productions that took an appalling true crime and turn it into fast food entertainment like Michael Bay's 'Pain &Gain' or '30 Minutes or Less'. For an exploitation film it is too tame and for a drama it offers no one to care about. In short: not worth your time.
3 out of 10.
