It's not great by any means, but it's a pretty good movie that didn't leave me filled with regret for investing time in it.

This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

One of the best movies of the year! Incredible from the beginning to the end.

I didn’t really have many expectations going into the movie (good or bad), but I actually really enjoyed it. I really liked the characters and the banter between them.

A psychotic criminal called Romeo Dolorosa (Javier Bardem) is a dangerous exponent of the Vodoo-like cult , Santeria , he meets his match in femme-fatal Tex-Mex , Perdita Durango (Rosie Perez) . The couple nevertheless finds time along the way and abducts a random teenager duo named Duane (Harley Cross) and Estelle (Aimee Graham) for a forced march on the wild side . The woman rapes the male captive, and lets him watch his lover being raped by the man. They then plan to sacrifice the couple . The story kicks in when Romeo has to transport a lorryload of live foetuses across the border , being relentlessly pursued by a stubborn officer ,Willie 'Woody' Dumas , (James Gandolfini) .This hallucinatory weirdness is a full-on surreal action movie with a wild ride that blends thrills , a lot of fun , sleazeball local color , suspense , tension as well as an intriguing script full of underlying seriousness , horror , comedy and embarrassing situations . Packed with scenes of disagreeable nature , this fantasy-fuelled is exciting as well as frightening , as we follow the strange situations of a peculiar couple and a pair of teens whose destination is dictated by terrible events . The picture is rated ¨R¨ for its crude violence , grisly killings , lashings of sexual abandon , lots of nudism , gore and guts . The narration is so filled with quirk characters , crazy violence mixed with diabolic elements and an underlying sense of horror and gore , and it is so excessive and plenty of surprises, one can't help but keep watching, much as it is over the top in many an occasion . In the picture there is a marvelous homage by inter-cutting of footage from Robert Aldrich's excellent Mexican Western ¨Veracruz¨ and its main actor , Burt Lancaster . Overacting and excessive acting by Javier Bardem as Santero Romeo Dolorosa and nice acting by Rosie Perez as Tex-Mex Perdita who was first incarnated by Isabella Rosselini at ¨David Lynch's Wild and heart¨ also based in a novel by Barry Gifford . Javier Bardem and Carlos Bardem got badly burnt due to excessive gunpowder and a badly synchronized explosion caused by a special effects technician ; another crew member got second and third degree burns in 80% of his body . Very good support cast plenty of familiar faces such as Don Stroud as Santos , Demian Bichir as Catalina , Carlos Bardem -Javier's brother- as Reggie San Pedro , Screamin' Jay Hawkins as Adolfo , Santiago Segura as Shorty Dee and special mention to recently deceased the great James Gandolfini . Good cinematography by Flabio Martinez Labiano , excellent cameraman of ¨Non-stop , Unknown , Day of Beast , Time crimes , 800 bullets¨ , among others ; he's Alex De La Iglesia's usual photographer . Thrilling and stirring musical score by Simon Boswell . Spanish filmmaker Alex De La Iglesia tackles efficiently the further adventures of Perdita , being compellingly directed and it barely quickens the pulse , though 'Bigas Luna' was first slated to direct the film . When Bigas was due to direct the film, Madonna, Javier Bardem and Dennis Hopper were his first choices to play the main roles . Alex De La Iglesia is a cool director who has got much success as ¨Accion Mutante¨ ,¨Dying of laughter¨ or ¨Muertos De Risa¨ , ¨Baby's room¨ , ¨Oxford murders¨ , ¨Balada Triste De Una Trompeta¨ and this ¨Perdita Durango¨ is probably the weirdest Javier Bardem film ever made , being De La Iglesia's English-language debut shot in USA . And of course 'La Comunidad' obtained the unanimous praise of both the critics and the public and results to be a lot of fun, especially for those who enjoy surrealist humor , it won several Goya prizes and a turning point in his meteoric career ; from then on he became his own producer, beginning with '800 bullets' (2002) through the Pánico Films company . Winner of several Goyas (Spanish Oscars), however his movies have not yet reached box office in USA, but he has strong followers , as his films have a kind of comic edge to them . In ¨Perdita Durango¨ there is nonsense, ridicule , violence , sex , absurdity , disturbing scenes and many other issues ; you can find everything in this flick . It captures the essence of the best Álex De La Iglesia, a filmmaker who, at this point in his own story, is respected and admired worldwide and has the most committed fans in the film universe . This is without a doubt a thrilling and enjoyable movie to be enjoyed for thriller buffs and Alex De Iglesia fans.

Oh. My. God.Who knew they made exploitation flicks like this anymore?I'm an old enough East Coaster to hold fond memories of New York's Times Square before Rudolph "Benito" Giuliani sold it to Disney and TGI Friday.Aside from the skin flicks, movies like "Dance with the Devil" were as indicative of NYC moviehouses as its giant, family-friendly multiplexes are now.This is exactly, EXACTLY the kind of movie they'd be showing in Times Square right now if David "Wait, what? I'm the damn MAYOR???" Dinkins stayed in office.Without rehashing the plot, let's just say "Dance with the Devil" is everything right that Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez get wrong when they digitally replicate film scratches and cellophane splices into their unworthy "Grindhouse" homages."Dance with the Devil" is what Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez imagine when they touch each other in the shower.The plot, not that it matters, is about two Hispanic maniacs who kidnap a white teenage couple to sacrifice in some Santeria ritual that doesn't really exist and that would probably offend just about every Hispanic person on earth, faith irregardless.Let's go over the pros:-- The only chick to get naked is the one who's supposed to be a teenager (but is obviously not). Thumbs up!-- Pre-"Sopranos" James Gandolfini (RIP) as a DEA agent is high throughout this whole movie, and repeatedly gets run over by cars for no good reason. Thumbs up!-- Rosie Perez obviously has one of those devoted, gay personal assistants whose job it is to massage her breasts until her nipples poke out of her tank top in every scene. Thumbs up!The cons:-- Humanity knows Rosie Perez is better than this, and humanity is profoundly disappointed in her. Thumbs down.-- Rosie Perez never takes her clothes off. Thumbs down-- What is this movie about? Thumbs down.So this was on a collection of four movies no one's ever heard of for a buck at the dollar store, and this one is definitely worth the two bits. And nothing more.

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.

I saw six movies in three days at my first Toronto Film Festival -- this one last, after a slow-moving Japanese film, "Afterlife" (which I also enjoyed, and the pace of which set up this film wonderfully). I saw this uncut and on the big screen, and it shot right through my veins like an amphetamine from a slingshot. Javier Bardem is one of those rare actors who is so good, who disappears so far into his roles, that a lot of people still don't know him. Pity -- he's the pivot of this film, the steady-burning sun around which equally dazzling Rosie Perez throbs in her mad ecliptic orbit. The acting is, in fact -- in spite of what you're reading elsewhere here -- perfectly pitched in all quarters. I managed to get an uncut video copy online a few years back from ebay, and it IS true, the movie loses a bit in the translation from big-screen to small, but trust me, it's still a wild ride. I left the theater feeling like I'd been set on fire with gasoline and Vaseline.