Blood, Guts, Bullets and Octane (1998)

User Rating:

5.6/10   

Director:

Joe Carnahan

Writer:

Joe Carnahan (screenplay)

Release Date:

16 October 1998 (USA)

Genre:

Action | Comedy | Crime | Thriller

Tagline:

Every generation has a hero.

Plot:

A Cherry Pontiac Lemans Convertible...Two Days...Two-Hundred & Fifty Grand. When your lemon lot hits...

Plot Keywords:

Car | Long Title | Independent Film

Cast

Joe Carnahan	...	Sid French
Dan Leis	...	Bob Melba
Ken Rudulph	...	FBI Agent Jared
Dan Harlan	...	Danny Woo
Hugh McChord	...	Mr. Reich
Kurt Johnson	...	Hillbilly Sniper
Mark S. Allen	...	FBI Agent Franks
Kellee Benedict	...	FBI Agent Littel
Mike Maas	...	Victor Drub / Dumpster Bum
Nick Fenske	...	Mechanic
Mark Priolo	...	Frank Priolo
Andrew Fowler	...	Mike Carbuyer
Gloria Gómez	...	Julie Carbuyer
Josephine Arreola	...	Elda
Dave Booth	...	Jerry

MPAA:

Rated R for violence and pervasive language.

Runtime:

87 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Certification:

UK:15 | USA:R | Iceland:16

Filming Locations:

Sacramento, California, USA

Company:

Short Fuse Films

Goofs:

Factual errors: Mr Reich claims to have doused Vernon with propane and roasted him in a motel room but when propane is decompressed and introduced into any atmosphere warmer than -43°C (-45.4°F) it instantly evaporates

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Narc: Making the Deal (2003) (V)

Soundtrack:

Spreadin' My Love

Unfairly Under-appreciated

When Robert Rodriguez's El Mariachi came out in 1992, everyone was so dazzled by what Rodriguez could do for $7,500. Blood Guts Bullets & Octane was released in 1999, and everyone found it to be a simple Tarantino rip-off. Well, frankly, Blood Guts Bullets & Octane is at least three times the film El Mariachi is, because not only was Joe Carnahan able to make a feature-length film with choreographed violence and creative freedom like Rodriguez did, but he also wrote a very tight, extremely smart, creative script. Rodriguez wrote a laughable little direct-to-video fluff where the dialogue is stilted in the worst way and the story hardly works. Why when someone detects even the slightest acknowledgment of Tarantino in a film do they decide to fire criticism at it when maybe it could be more than a simple clone?

I don't believe Quentin Tarantino had any influence on this film. Yes, you could say he did, because the story flashes back and the dialogue is earthy and clever. But is he the only filmmaker to have ever told a nonlinear story with earthy, clever dialogue? No. Far from it. In fact, I think it's extremely injust and unfair to protect so ardently from imitation a filmmaker like Tarantino, who admittedly steals from every other filmmaker in existence, even ones that came after him. And those who criticize this film for being a Tarantino clone may not be as well-versed in film as Tarantino or Carnahan himself to the point where you would realize that the dialogue is not at all like Tarantino's. QT writes dialogue with the intention of sounding realistic. He acts as recorder while his characters segue into natural conversations irrelevant to the plot. Carnahan's characters speak like satirizations of car dealers and people you would only find in movies. His dialogue is written to be quick, jazzy, clever, and even a little poetic, because sometimes lines will be alliterative, contain similes and metaphors, and other such things. If you would like to zero in on Carnahan's influence---and every writer, filmmaker, or any other artist has their influences---then perhaps David Mamet is a better candidate. Even so, who cares? Carnahan's script is loaded with razor-sharp wit and his own knack for the pace and rhythm of a film.

I think for a film made for $8,000 and bags of Doritos the cast is quite convincing. Whether they are professional or trained actors I don't know, but whoever they are, they have natural penchants for acting. Carnahan himself is excellent, and perhaps the best of the performances comes from Dan Leis, who plays opposite him.

The cinematography and editing get a bit gimmicky and overexerted, especially in terms of the unpatterned switching off between color and black-and-white and title cards for each scene. It seems corny and gratuitous, and considering it as a movie despite its budget and circumstances, it definitely is, but Carnahan is a smart and practical director, and he made this film to pack a shattering punch of all that he can do and more with just that much money (and Doritos).