Tarantino's One Great Performance

FDTD

While Quentin Tarantino is easily one of the best, most influential writer/directors of his generation, his acting has always been atrocious. From a starring role in Destiny Turns on the Radio to a supporting one in Four Rooms to regular cameos in his own films, Tarantino defines the director-who-can't-act cliché. His cameos in Pulp Fiction, Death Proof and Django Unchained may be short but they always have the unfortunate effect of pulling the audience right out of the film, which is never a good thing. At least Hitchcock had the good taste to limit his cameos to instantly forgettable walk-ons.

Having said that, Mr. Tarantino did manage to turn in one excellent acting performance in 1996 as George Clooney's sexual deviant younger brother Richie in the original From Dusk 'Til Dawn. Richie is a loose cannon rapist who reluctantly submits to the will of his necessarily controlling older brother Seth, a proper career criminal. Tarantino plays up his natural awkwardness to creepy extremes and delivers his lines with eerie brilliance. His combination of whiney baby brother and violent psychopath give him a persona that's both darkly funny and deeply menacing. While the interplay between Clooney and Tarantino provides plenty of humor, it's the actors' chemistry and Tarantino's low-key dialogue that make for a dead-on portrayal of sibling rivalry that's easily the best thing the film has going for it.

If Robert Rodriguez had kept the brothers'relationship as the focus throughout and avoided the vampires altogether, From Dusk 'Til Dawn could have been a fascinating character play instead of devolving into the cheesy action-horror B-movie that it does at the midpoint. Apparently the film is actually a hybrid of two initially separate scripts, but perhaps it would have been better had they remained separate. Talk about a missed opportunity.