Bandidas

Salma Hayek, Penelope Cruz, Steve Zahn

As any other red-blooded male I, of course, was drawn to the movie on the premise of Salma and Penelope in Western corsets and slinging guns. That being said, my interest should have been kept by a decent story, which it was not. The movie was slow, and the characters were not well-developed (or even well-acted) : this supposed revenge tale was brought down by the two leads acting like spoiled brats on a sleepover. This type of "bitchy" dialogue was probably trying to be cute, but it truly brought down the movie- even tongue in cheek as it was.

Steve Zahn brought some interest to the film by being the geeky detective, which was interestingly written but the few short bits of detective work were sidetracked by making him the girls boytoy. Alright enough, if the rest of the movie had been more interesting.

My wife made a good point in that what the movie was lacking was interaction between the Bandidas and other people. "This is a town and country full of people, but they're only talking to each other!" Good point, which relates back to the teenage girl sleepover feel that the movie had.

BEST PART was Sam Shepherd, as the retired crusty bank robber hiding out in Mexico - this10 minute segment was so well done that it shows what good acting looks like compared to bad acting. Plus, his dialogue was so good I wondered if he had been allowed to improvise or write his lines himself. That would be interesting to know.

Lastly, and not to keep beating up the two ladies, but I swear to you (and I can't make it any clearer than this and it pretty much sums up the whole thing): If I had not known that Salma's from Mexico and Penelope's from Spain, I would have though that they were faking their exagerrated Spanish accents.


Now, that's sad.


VG