Republished from the show notes of my other site, Fuds on Film.
Also known as Dance with the Devil, in which Rosie Perez’s titular character (I mean, Perdita, not Satan, although there’s some crossover in outlook I suppose) is heading back to Mexico to scatter the remains of her dead sister. While there, she meets Javier Bardem’s Romeo Dolorosa, a sort of jack of all criminal trades that looks like a cross between Little Richard and Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, whose current primary scam is setting himself up as a “priest” of Santeria, aided by Adolfo, who looks and sounds like Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, because that’s who’s playing the part.
Now, giving a blow by blow account of what happens in Perdita Durango is a bit of a fool’s errand, as it’s basically just a violent crime road trip. Finding out that the source material, Barry Gifford’s 59° and Raining: The Story of Perdita Durango is a sort-of spiritual sequel to his Wild at Heart makes a lot of sense in retrospect, this having a similar unhinged, free-associating vibe to it.
Nonetheless, I should at least make you aware that it’s the sort of film that takes a break from a scheme involving the illegal transport of refrigerated human foetuses to make cosmetic moisturiser in order to kidnap people at random to murder in a ceremony, so it’s not doing well on the sympathetic protagonist scale. Still, not every film needs one, and our anti-heroes here are at least interesting enough to keep you erngauged with their antics.
Which is not to say that it’s necessarily good, although I also don’t think it’s bad, exactly. By it’s nature it lacks focus, ultimately spending a bit too long flashing back to Romeo’s childhood, or dialogue with the two teen kidnapees that doesn’t do much to shed light on anyone involved’s worldview, or with an underserved James Gandolfini as the DEA agent on the trail of Romeo.
There’s a very 90’s Indy feel to most of the film, in a way that these days we’d call Tarantino-esque, and this perhaps feels most comparable to something like Natural Born Killers, at least in the way that it seems to value shock over having any kind of point. I’ll concede at least that there are some people who would make an argument that there’s more to NBK, even if I don’t particularly agree, but I don’t think there would be anyone going to bat for Perdita Durango.
Still, I was entertained enough for the duration of the film, thanks to the inclusion of buckets of nihilistic violence and a Nic Cage level performance of scenery chew-nihilation from Javier Bardem. Really, my main complaint with the film is that, despite the title and her strong introduction, before long Perditia is a spectator in her own story, carried along in Romeo’s current apparently only because a film needed to happen. Strange.
Anyway, after hearing the name bandied about for years I’m glad to have finally seen it, but I’ll most likely never go back to it.