Revival House

Pistoleros (2007)
dir. Shaky González


Yet another entry in the Tarantino/Ritchie inspired gangster genre. The last one I looked at was Matando Cabos (2004) from Mexico and now here is one from Denmark. Don't be fooled by the title and name of the director, it is a Danish film.

This film attempts nonlinear storytelling, which technically it achieves, but lacks a certain cleverness in its telling. Several characters are after a a bag of loot that was taken from a train robbery. All of this is being told in two levels of flashback. Yes, two. The first level is the story being told to a young filmmaker and his Hottie producer. The second level is within the story as the story is being told to a greasy low level hood who ends up getting involved in the hunt for the cash. (Was that confusing or just poor sentence structure?) Some of the performances are fun and whenever the film seems to want to slow down, a comedically violent contrivance is thrown at us to keep things moving. It also decides to pay direct homage to the westerns of Sergio Leone by using music from A Fistful Of Dollars (1964) throughout.

It wants to try and play with the conventions of urban myth and how truth and fiction can become warped, but doesn't really sell it by the end. There is also an odd moment where the young filmmaker being told the story thinks he sees one of the main characters in a bar. It makes no sense since he'd have no idea what the guy looks like. I think it's there to drive home the idea of how myths grow, but ends up being ridiculous.

It's worth a look if you're bored some evening and need some escapist fair, but don't expect anything deep or emotionally involving. I recommend it for some of the acting, but be prepared for some major leaps in logic. The nice part is you'll be able to say to people how you just checked out a film by Shaky González. It's a fun name to say when using your best Don LaFontaine voice.