800 Balas ( Spain, 2002 )

Language : Spanish | Director : Alex de la Iglesia | Starring : Sancho Garcia, Luis Castro | Country : Spain | Year : 2002

What is Bala ? That too 800 in number ? I know few Bala- Bala Chander, Bala Murugan and some Bala-jis. Let me cut it, Bala in Spanish means bullet, not the one which our mama rides, it means “bullet” used in guns.

Luis Castro as Carlos

There is no second guess, if it's about bullet-guns then this has to be a western genre film, yes this film is a spaghetti western, but this is not like a tight-lipped, Toscani-cigar smoking Clint Eastwood kind of film- In fact it’s a film about Clint Eastwood’ double !. 

Yes, Julian Torralba, who was once the double for lead Hollywood actors like Eastwood is a stuntman in Almeria, Spain. The story is set is present-day Spain, with no more westerns made by the Hollywood, these stuntmen are confined their stunt-shows as daily entertainment.

Plot

Sancho Garcia as Julian

Carlos, son of a wealthy business women Laura. She is looking for a good sunny real estate to build a theme park. While shifting to a new home, Carlos, stumbles upon his deceased father photography, he then learns from his granny that his father was a stuntman, he was killed in an accident, his grandfather Julian still runs a show named Texas, Hollywood in Almeria. 

Carlos then sets off to Almeria, only to find that Julian runs the show for a minuscule foreign tourists and he is in the verge of breaking the business. 

With the sense of adventure taking in, young boy Carlos also starts to perform with Julian. Laura then finds Carlos with Julian and sees an opportunity that Texas, Hollywood will be a suitable place for her theme park. 

Julian’ boss sell the land to Laura, this is opposed by Julian and his men, as this place is their only lively hood for them. So they try to fight it out with 800 bullets. The film ends with the stand-off between the cops and Julian’ men, which ends with Julian losing his life. 

The film is full of funny moments, raw and rough western film or at least they pretend to be in a spaghetti western, when I say “pretend”, as per the story, except Julian no one had acted (doubled) in any kind of film.

This is a good leisurely enjoyable foreign language film to watch.

Trailer