None of the acting is particularly impressive. All the actors are playing echoes of other characters they have played. Carradine as The Deuce has the same air of gentle, reasoned menace that his Bill from Kill Bill had. Madsen’s Gent is the same dangerous fool as his Mr. Blonde from Reservoir Dogs. Larry Bishop tries to play Pistolero as cool and collected. We are supposed to like him because nothing fazes him, he has a smart-ass quip for everything, and he gets laid all the time. But the way he wears his shades all the time, lingers too long in doorways, and responds to everything with stupid, smug smile on his face does not strike me as cool. He comes across more like an arrogant prick.
Bishop’s directing style is not very impressive. At first he does an interesting thing where the violent scenes are presented almost as love scenes, but about halfway through the movie that approach is dropped. The sex scenes are more graphic and longer than you would usually see in an R-rated movie, but there is nothing artistic about them. The drug scenes are presented in an avant-garde way similar to the drug scenes in Midnight Cowboy and Easy Rider. They have a weird strobe effect that is headache inducing.
Everyone in the movie speaks in a hip, irony-filled manner. I believe it's time to retire this practice, as it is growing ever more tiresome. When the Gent says, “So what you’re sayin’ is...that the booty…in the box…that I already said…I want nothing from…is none of my business?” it is not clever, it is annoying. That is not even a very egregious example. No one speaks like this in real life, because it would be too annoying for those around to bear.
Tarantino fans can quite easily skip this film. In fact everyone can quite easily skip this film. Exploitation fan will probably find the violence too fleeting and I cannot see who else the filmmakers are trying to appeal to. In attempting to make an arty, hip, exploitation film, Bishop has made a film that is not artistic, hip, or even a fun diversion.
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