Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

Director and writer Alex de la Iglesia has created a gem in Perdita Durango.Starring Rosie Perez who has also been in other classic flicks, Pineapple Express 2008, The Take 2007 and Do the Right Thing 1989.Also starring Javier Bardem who has also been in another classic flick, No Country for Old Men 2007.Also starring Harley Cross who has also been in another classic flick, Cohen and Tate 1988.Also starring James Gandolfini who has also been in another classic flick, True Romance 1993.I enjoyed the sex and violence.If you enjoyed this as much as I did then check out other classic South American crime flicks, Amores perros 2000, Carlito's Way 1993, City of God 2002, Desperado 1995, El mariachi 1992, Machete 2010, Extreme Prejudice 1987, Scarface 1983 El Narco 2010, In the Blood 2014, Crossing Point 2016, Sicario 2015, Desierto 2015, And Soon the Darkness 2010 and Secuestro express 2005.

"Perdita Durango" is one of those movies that you don't know a thing about it but you end up watching it because it gets your attention because of the crude of it's events and it's grind house look. I watched it on cable some years ago and after the end credits I couldn't believe I watched an Alex de la Iglesia movie and that the lead male character was none other than Javier Bardem! I felt like a fool for not recognizing them.Anyways, I watched it again some time after and the experience changed a little. I still thought the movie was very crude, violent, and held perfectly the black humor that is a characteristic often used by Alex de la Iglesia.But the backbone of the film is the great, violent acting by Javier Bardem and Rosie Pérez. Both deliver extraordinary displays of rage, desperation, self-control, sense of security, intelligence.I particularly enjoyed their "forced sex" sequence with the American teen couple. That was really high. The intensity, the way the blonde teens guilt each other for "enjoying it". The ending will leave you shocked. Watch "Perdita Durango" and expect a joyride of sex, drugs, violence, bullets, explosions, perversion, desire, and power. Eat your heart out, TJ traffickers.

Alex de la Iglesias seems to tap so well into Barry Gifford's material that he almost gives David Lynch, who's worked with the man twice (including on the script for near-masterpiece Lost Highway, also released in 1997), a run for his surrealistic-road-movie money. Perdita Durango, aka Dance with the Devil, is a firecracker of a thriller, loaded with so much (controlled) insanity, skillful and even artistically driven film-making, and a dynamite cast, that it threatens to burn off the screen and rape all of our children while it does Santeria in our living rooms. On the surface it's just a, well, crazy exploitation movie premise: two bad-asses, one a big dude with a Mexican mullet and a history of mystical ties to ritual dancing and sacrifices (Romeo), another a long-haired, curvy lover-cum-killer with a tough front and a jealous heart ( Perdita Durango) are on their way to bring a truck full of frozen embryos across the border, with a kidnapped "gringo" couple in tow.But within that surface there's a lot going on. Not that the film goes into the art-house sect like Wild at Heart, but it digs into the meat of its premise and the danger at every turn for all of the characters. The hand of fate slips in probably just as much, if not more-so, than the other infamous Bardem picture No Country for Old Men. At the drop of a hat a character can get run over by a car (sometimes, in the case of Gandolfini's hilariously hammy-pig DEA agent Woody Dumas, more than once), or a score that was scorned can come back to haunt another characters, or dancing out of some old tribal instinct in the middle of a club. It's an absurdist view of material that is on the one hand deranged and funny because of the random outrageousness of the violence, but on the other hand much more well-done because Iglesias doesn't stoop to poor craftsmanship. This is B-movie-making for people who like good, strong, lean direction that can take some detours that don't leave the audience too much in the dust.On second thought, that last point could be contested. I could imagine somebody watching Perdita Durango and not liking it at all, being just completely put off by the violence and (usually) sadistic host of characters, and how it doesn't seem to connect most times with a real sense of reality (as my friend pointed out watching it, early on the film seems to resemble a kind of film vomit, loaded with colors and scenes and bits thrown together). But it's a fair assessment. For those who know what they're getting, they need look no further than the cover, which has Perez &/or Bardem looking like they're right out of a pulp fiction book, with her holding a gun and him with his crazed eyes. If you do give it a chance, however, it does provide more than the expectations for your usual road movie. And the cast is a huge part of this. Aside from Bardem's presence, there's also Perez, who is in one of her very best turns as the title character, as rough as an outlaw but vulnerable. And then there's Gandolfini, great supporting moments from Cox, Hawkins (yes, Screaming Jay), and even the kids playing the kidnapped gringos, making the most of an at-best two-dimensional playing field.The violence is savage, the theatrics go between over the top and startlingly convincing, and the sex is hot and dangerous as possible. Perdita Durango is so good you can smell the sweat pouring off the characters's heads.

A film with an interesting concept, that simply fails to perform. Do not get me wrong, Gandolfini delights as a federal agent, and Bardem plays a convincing killer. However, a significant portion of the dialogue is in Spanish, and even more of it is incomprehensible. The version I viewed had quite poor sound quality, with a large variant of volumes from background music to the kind that forces you to drop the volume to a quarter of where it needs to be to understand the characters. All in all the film, did poor service to David Lynch's "Wild at Heart," from which two of its characters are taken. However, at $5.00 (Walmart) it is hard to go wrong with a film, especially if you like any of its actors.