Acción Mutante (Álex de la Iglesia, 1993)

You know the future is bleak when the majority of the world's population are wearing welding goggles as everyday eye-wear. You could say, the future's so bleak, that you gotta wear welding goggles. But I won't say that. Why won't I being saying that, even though I sort of just did, you ask? Trust me, the key to attracting a younger demographic is not achieved by making references to Timbuk 3. The same goes for Digital Poodle (their lead singer, Mouth 392, was famous for wearing welding goggles as everyday eye-wear back in the day). No, if you want to attract young people to whatever it is you're doing (whether it be music, film or literature), you need to constantly talk about nylons, the colour taupe, Uzi's, leggy floozies, iridescent liquid, industrial bands from 1980s (preferably of the Belgian variety), and, most importantly, welding goggles. In other words, things young people like. Do these things, and I guarantee you'll have the Miley Cyrus generation eating out of the palm of your taint. And that's another thing, talk about your taint a lot. Kids love that. Anyway, looking over the things I listed that one should mention when trying to lure young people, it would seem that Álex de la Iglesia's Acción Mutante, while it doesn't feature all of them, it does boast two of the most important ones. And those are, of course, nylons and welding goggles.

You could say that nylons and welding goggles are the perfect metaphor for the class war that takes place in this film. Depicting a world where the poor are all members of heavily armed criminal gangs (who all wear welding goggles even when not welding), and the rich throw lavish parties complete with robot security guards, and, if you're lucky, a fully functional, fully fabulous Rossy de Palma (everyone's legs, including Rossy's, are sheathed in the silkiest nylons lot's of money can buy), writer-director Álex de la Iglesia covers some of the same ground he did in the equally awesome Perdita Derango. And, yes, trust me, Acción Mutante is awesome.

Now, I could easily list a bunch of movies that clearly influenced the Spanish director. But I don't feel like doing that at this particular juncture. And besides, most of the movies are the kind I don't want sullying my... Okay, I'll mention RoboCop... and The Ice Pirates. Yeah, those are all right. As for the rest, fuck them.

Either way, none of the films that influenced Álex de la Iglesia come anywhere close to matching the sheer insanity he manages to throw at the screen. Call it Almodóvar in space (Almodóvar, by the way, is listed as a producer), call it the Spanish Mad Max, call it what you will, Acción Mutante has more than enough going for it to be able to stand tall next to the greats of cult cinema.

Accidentally killing the rich fat fuck they planned on kidnapping by suffocating him with a ball gag, the leaderless members of Acción Mutante, a gang of thugs who repeatedly kick society in the culo (at least they try to), are clearly in a bit of a funk as of late. Unable to carry out a mission without screwing up, it's obvious to anyone with half a brain that they need a leader.

The answer to their prayers arrives shortly after the botched kidnapping attempt when their fearless leader, Ramón Yarritu (Antonio Resines), is released from prison (he just finished serving a five year sentence).

Picking him up from prison in an ice cream truck are Alex and Juan Abadie (Álex Angulo y Juan Viadas), Siamese twins; César 'Quimicefa' Ravenstein (Saturnino García), who floats on a hovering platform; José Óscar 'Manitas' Tellería (Karra Elejalde), an engineer of some kind; Amancio 'M.A.' González (Alfonso Martínez), the gang's muscle and, apparently, the owner of the world's lowest I.Q.; and José 'Chepa' Montero (Ion Gabella), a gay hunchback little person.

Ahh, so many Spanish names. At this moment my brain probably resembles an under-cooked pile of paella.

Judging by what we see as Acción Mutante's ice cream truck cruises through town, it would appear that they're living in a police state.

Wasting little time, Ramón, who, from looks of it, has been hatching this plan for quite awhile now, puts forth a scheme to kidnap Patricia Orujo (Frédérique Feder), the daughter of  Mr. Orujo (Fernando Guillén), the owner of one of the country's biggest bakery companies, on her wedding day.

Pretending to be bakers, the idea is to bring a giant cake to the wedding. It's simple enough plan, when the Siamese twins play "Aires de fiesta" by Karina on the jukebox, that's M.A.'s cue to turn off the lights. When this occurs, the gay hunchback little person should pop out of the cake with guns blazing. As the gay hunchback little person is filling the guests (including Rossy de Palma) with lead, Ramón is supposed to grab Patricia and then make a clean getaway.

Of course, none of it goes according to plan. Oh, sure, lot's of people are filled with lead and Patricia is eventually kidnapped, but... You know what? Despite a few minor hiccups here and there, I think everything worked out for the best. I mean, the plan involved kidnapping a leggy bakery heiress, and that's exactly what they did.

(Wait, you didn't say anything about the bakery heiress being leggy.)

Do you really think I would bother reviewing a movie if it didn't feature a leggy bakery heiress? C'mon. You know me better than that.

Taking unexpected turn, Acción Mutante suddenly becomes an interstellar space adventure, as we're whisked aboard the Virgen del Carmen, Acción Mutante's giant spaceship. The second part of the plan involves rendezvousing on some planet with Mr. Orujo so that he can pay the 100 million dollar ransom. Only problem being, Ramón told the members of Acción Mutante they were getting 10 million. Actually it only becomes a problem when they hear about the 100 million dollar ransom on the news. Anyway, this, as you might expect, causes some serious trust issues to arise.

Even though  Ramón reassures the rest of Acción Mutante that the media were merely trying to cause dissension in the ranks, he decides right then and there that he no longer needs them.

If you're wondering what happened to the concept of "honour among thieves"? It's obvious that spending the last five years watching nothing but tabloid television in prison has warped Ramón's value system. You could view this as Álex de la Iglesia's way of saying that the media can corrupt anyone; even the leader of Acción Mutante.

When the Virgen del Carmen crash lands on a womanless mining planet, Ramón throws Patricia out of the ship like a ragdoll, grabs her by the hair and proceeds to drag her to the Garcia Bar (the location of the planned rendezvous with Mr. Orujo).

Given that the crash caused the staples that kept Patricia's mouth shut to fall out, Patricia begins to express herself verbally for the first time since she was initially kidnapped. Much to the chagrin of Ramón, who just wants to collect his ransom and be on his merry way.

In order to complicate Ramón's journey to Garcia Bar, the script throws a few roadblocks at him to keep things interesting. My favourite roadblock being Patricia's sexy legs. I know, it's not really a roadblock in the classic sense of the word, but I like to think Patricia's sexy, stocking-encased legs were the cause of at least some stress.

Still wearing her wedding dress, the sight of Patricia's begrimed white stockings (with grayish tops) glimmering in the desert heat is what makes Acción Mutante the classic that it is today. It's as simple as that. Oh, and the other roadblock, the one involving a lovesick Alex (Juan, his Siamese twin, was murdered by Ramón), was cool, too.

Perdita Durango (Álex de la Iglesia, 1997)

Despite having a lead character who sports what I consider to be one of the greatest haircuts of all-time and opening with a shot of Rosie Perez's booty in all its mid-90s glory, I was still on the fence about Perdita Durango (a.k.a. Dance with the Devil), Álex de la Iglesia's raucous road movie about, well... I'll get to that in a minute. Then something occurred that caused me to sit up and take notice. No, not the scene where Harley Cross briefly recalls the time he lost his virginity to a rotund woman with an profound pair of sagittally symmetrical indentations on her lower back (pound that chaste cock into the ground, you chunky harlot, you... pound it!). I'm talking about the face Javier Bardem makes while listening "Spanish Flea" by Herb Alpert and The Tijuana Brass. I know, that's a weird thing to get excited about it, especially in a movie where James Gandolfini gets hit by a car not once, but twice. But what I can say? I'm sucker for scenes in movies that feature demented psychopaths with kick-ass haircuts making funny faces while listening to jazzy pop music as two blubbering blonde gringos cower in the backseat of said demented psychopath's car.

The mechanics surrounding how those blubbering blonde gringos ended up in the back of the car belonging to Romeo Dolorosa (Javier Bardem) is somewhat complicated, yet, it's also pretty straightforward at the same time.

If you were to tell me that the reason Romeo and Perdita Durango (Rosie Perez) plucked Duane (Harley Cross) and Estelle (Aimee Graham) off the streets of Juárez was for cannibal-related purposes, I would say that, yes, that's "pretty straightforward."

However, if you were to add the fact that both Romeo and Perdita develop crushes on Duane and Estelle (who are as white as their names imply), I would have no choice but to declare their particular situation "somewhat complicated."

Yet another movie that has cast some serious doubts on my previous claims about being alive during 1990s (I have no idea how I missed this film), Perdita Durango is one of the most well-made pieces of trash cinema I've ever had to pleasure to witness. I mean, check out that aerial shot of all those cars waiting at that Mexico-U.S.A. border crossing. The last film I saw with aerial photography this good would have to be Cavegirl. What I'm trying to say in my own clumsy way is that, I don't usually get to see films that sport complicated aerial photography. Seriously, it was like something out of a Michael Bay movie.

Later that night, near that very border crossing, Romeo spots Perdita Durango's reflection in the Herb Alpert and The Tijuana Brass compact disc he is currently holding. As Romeo approaches Perdita Durango, who is enjoying a cool beverage, I thought to myself: Nothing good can come from talking to a man with a haircut like that.

Short in the front and long in the back (with the sides shaved), Romeo's haircut is a force of nature in this film.

As she proves in the film's opening scene, Perdita Durango isn't the kind of woman you simply walk up and start a conversation with (earlier in the film, she shuts down the pedestrian advances of a lumpy gringo in an airport lounge). But, as we all know, judging by his haircut and his crazed demeanour, Romeo is no lumpy gringo. In other words, I think these two were made for each other.

When he's not taking the time to inspect the breasts of attractive bank tellers in the middle of a bank robbery, or having exuberant sexual intercourse with Perdita Durango on a rickety old bed (there's no way that bed can handle the Latin-tinged thrusts Romeo's workmanlike pelvis puts out there on a regular basis), Romeo conducts bizarre "voodoo style" rituals for tourists and superstitious locals.

Usually involving blood-spitting and bongo music, the first show of this type we see is well-attended, and... Wait a minute, who's that in that back with the video camera? Why, it's Willie Dumas (James Gandolfini), an officer with the DEA.

It would seem that the DEA want to bust Romeo for a series of drug-related offenses. Only problem being, they can never seem to catch him in the act. We're clued in early on as to why this could be, when we see Romeo employ a magic necklace to great effect to pass through customs unmolested. Except, he wasn't trying to smuggle drugs into the U.S., he was trying to smuggle a dead body; one that we later see him use in his "voodoo style" ritual show.

Figuring he can get to Romeo through Perdita Durango, James Gandolfini follows her around town. While an excellent plan on paper, James Gandolfini clearly forgot about the importance of looking both ways before crossing the street. Now, it might not sound like it, but the sight of James Gandolfini getting hit by a car is one of the funniest scenes in the movie. I don't want to over-analyze the reasons why I thought the sight of James Gandolfini's body crashing into the windshield of a speeding automobile was funny. But I will say this, the bulk of the humour came as a direct result of the arrogant air that floated around James Gandolfini's nimbus just before he started to cross the street.

At around this point in film we're introduced to Duane and Estelle, two relatively clean cut American teens. While their introduction seems unrelated to the Romeo and Perdita Durango saga, as we'll soon find out, their respective lives will soon intersect something fierce.

Blessed with some downtime before they do a job for a gangster named Santo (Don Stroud)–a job that has them transporting a trucked filled with frozen human embryos–Romeo and Perdita Durango decide to kidnap a couple of gringos to use in their next "voodoo style" ritual. And wouldn't you know it, they pluck a couple of blonde gringos named Duane and Estelle.

Even though it's best known as the song that appears at the end of Flirting with Disaster, I thought the way "Camel Walk" by Southern Culture on the Skids used in this film was more appropriate. You wouldn't think the same could said for "Spanish Flea" by Herb Alpert and The Tijuana Brass, but, as I stated earlier, the sight of Javier Bardem dancing–whilst in the seated position–to this particular ditty is awesome.

Will Duane and Estelle be able to survive their insane road trip with Romeo and Perdita Durango? Will James Gandolfini remember to look both ways before crossing the street? Who's to say? Of course, I realize I'm the one "to say." But I feel like I've already said too much.

Boasting not one, but two shoot outs (three, if you include the finale), a sexy Mexican stoner chick with killer thighs who doesn't "get" anime, Mascaras de la Lucha Libre, a gruesome death involving a bottle, Screamin' Jay Hawkins, an Ava Gardner assisted blow job, Alex Cox as an annoying DEA agent and a scene where a man over fifty-five uses an Abflex while watching The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Perdita Durango is a first-rate crime movie with darkly comedic overtones.