Blood Guts Bullets & Octane (1998)

Sid (Joe Carnahan) and Bob (Dan Leis) are a couple of fast-talking but nonetheless incompetent car salesmen who are in debt up to their necks and have just been served a notice evicting them from their lot. Salvation arrives in the form of a burgundy Pontiac Le Mans convertible; all they have to do is watch it for two days and they'll get paid $250,000. But once they have the car on their hands, the whole thing starts to smell like a setup, and they get second thoughts. Blood, Guts, Bullets & Octane owes a sizable debt to Quentin Tarantino (Reservoir Dogs, Pulp Fiction) and David Mamet (Glengarry Glen Ross, House of Games), which isn't necessarily a bad thing. Made on the cheap--the visual quality varies and half the crew is also in the cast, including writer-director-editor Carnahan)--Blood, Guts, Bullets & Octane cuts back and forth in time with energy, shifting between crooks blowing each other away and methodical FBI agents tracking them down. Scenes are framed by titles like "White Trash Trigger" and "Coldblooded Hotheads." In the end it amounts to little more than a lurid shaggy dog story, but fans of gunplay and pop-culture quips will have a good time along the way. --Bret Fetzer Amazon.com

A Fun B Movie

How my ratings work:
5 - I really liked/loved it
4 - I liked it
3 - Could've been better/worth a look
2 - Just didn't live up to the potential
1 - Simply aweful

This is the kind of movie that's good to watch on a slow and or dull day. It's no Oscar worthy film, nor is it an A list type film, but it is a fun B movie type film. People today don't seem to appreciate B cinema as much as they used to. This is a well put together low budget crime film made for a little over $7000, and it doesn't look like a $7000 film. The performances are over the top at times, but the actors have fun with it. Every crime film today seems to get compared to Quentin Tarantino. I myself love Tarantino's work, but people forget that he himself is a guy who takes material and ideas from other movies as well. Everyone takes from everyone, it's just a fact of life. For a debut film this movie showed off writer/director Joe Carnahan's talent as a filmmaker. His dialogue is whipe smart, even if a little offbeat at times, and his camera work is nicely energized. Of course his later work is much better, but few filmmakers hit the mark on the first try. Give the movie a shot; it won't be in your list of all time favorite films but it will entertain you. September 8, 2008

Ambitious debut

I've immensely enjoyed Joe Carnahan's other works, particularly Narc and Smokin' Aces, and count Narc as one of the very best crime dramas in recent memory. When I heard Carnahan had kicked off his career back in '98 by writing, directing, and starring in a low-budget indie in the vein of Robert Rodriguez' El Mariachi, I got stoked at the idea of what he could do with a small budget (less than $8,000) and complete creative control. So I popped in Blood Guts Bullets and Octane one day and prepared to drink in its indie goodness.

The result? A cocktail with the sweet flavor of ambition but the aftertaste of a Quentin Tarantino/David Mamet knock-off.

It's not that the dialogue doesn't work; if anything it works too much, is too frenetic, too hyper. Whereas early Tarantino and Mamet use language to explore human emotion and build character, Carnahan uses it to make his characters sound snappy and witty but without revealing any true depth. He seems willing to have the characters use as many words as possible to get their ideas across, trying to mask it as characterization. It's like asking your buddy what he wants on his pizza, and your buddy proceeds to itemize every topping imaginable and why pepperoni trumps them all. Dude, just say you want pepperoni and let's phone it in. It gets frustrating, for sure. The non-linear format of BGB&O is another nod to Tarantino. Carnahan has two or three storylines going, another tip of the hat to all the hip post-modern crime indies that cropped up after Tarantino hit the scene in '92. The acting is pretty solid, especially Carnahan himself, who has some surprising acting chops. His direction, along with his eye for stylized shots and skillful editing, prove to be the big strengths of the movie. What's especially nice about watching BGB&O is that you see these strengths mature in his subsequent movies, Narc and Smokin' Aces.

This movie is very ambitious and inspiring. As Carnahan proved with his later movies, he can write snappy dialogue that fuses with his ambitious style and intriguing premise to create a very entertaining movie. Blood Guts Bullets and Octane was just the warm-up lap to get him on his way to making good crime movies on bigger budgets. Rent this movie if you want to see a young up-and-comer with a lot of promise. May 17, 2007

Fun movie

For an indie pic, this movie was a lot of fun. There's not a lot of production value and some of the acting could be described as wooden, if you're being generous. I really enjoyed it, my friends really enjoyed it.

Movie watching is supposed to be a form of entertainment; some people take it way too seriously. Meet this movie with middling expectations and you might find it surprisingly enjoyable. I sure did. May 3, 2007

100 Words on "Blood, Guts, Bullets and Octane"

"Blood, Guts, Bullets and Octane" is a small, independent film full of guns, drugs, money and mystery that tries with all its might to be clever and hip. It doesn't succeed. Ever since David Mamet burst onto the theater scene, a lot of playwrights, screenwriters and novelists have wasted a lot of time writing sharp, snappy dialogue (myself included). The truth is, sooner or later that dialogue has to stop being sharp and has to actually say something. Unfortunately, by the time the dialogue in "Blood, Guts, Bullets and Octane" actually said anything, it was too late. I'd stopped caring. August 9, 2006

Fabulous Tarentino knockoff

Oh, the long arm of Quentin Tarentino! How far and deep into the bowels of cinema does the mighty Tarentino reach? As far as the eye can see. As soon as "Reservoir Dogs" and "Pulp Fiction" began reaching a wide audience, we started seeing the inevitable: the copycats. Yep, the copycats came out in full force with their own pictures embracing the "inimitable" Quentin Tarentino style. Movies with lengthy scenes of back and forth pseudo-intellectual and highly ironic dialogue, stylistic violence, and pop culture references galore started flooding the theaters and the shelves at the local video store. And I don't really have a problem with that. Tarentino is the first to admit that he's shamelessly cribbed from hundreds of low budget B movies from around the world, so more power to another filmmaker if he wants to steal from a ripoff artist. Besides, Hollywood is the home of the fast buck replication machine, wherein a successful idea arises and then is shamelessly exploited by others seeking to pay the mortgage on their fifteen-room mansion. Again, that isn't much of a problem. What I do mind, though, are derivative films that reek. O.K., not really, but SOMEONE probably hates them.

Fortunately, I firmly believe that Joe Carnahan's "Blood, Guts, Bullets & Octane" does not stink in any way, shape, or form. Is it low budget cheap? You bet, but it's also hilarious in spots and ultimately entertaining. The film follows the misadventures of two inept used car salesmen named Sid French (Joe Carnahan himself) and Bob Melba (Dan Leis). As the picture opens, we see these two schmucks fast talking customers out in the lot. It's a hilarious scene that really captures the essence of how the public perceives the bottom feeders that sell used cars. Then the movie gets to the nitty gritty. It turns out that Sid and Bob once worked for successful car dealer Danny Woo (Dan Harlan) before striking out on their own. Their little lot can't compete with the Woo powerhouse, unfortunately, and now the bank wants to call in all outstanding debts. But salvation rears its shining brow in the nick of time with an offer the boys can barely refuse, and would you believe salvation comes in the shape of a car? Some big shot wants Sid and Bob to keep a car on their lot for a few days--not to sell it, just to watch it--and give them a boatload of money in the process. A cool quarter of a million dollars for merely sitting on a car seems like easy money, but Sid suspects something more sinister is afoot.

And indeed it is. During the first part of the film, we often see the car moving from hand to hand on its way to the car lot. Oddly, everyone associated with the car dies violently. This 1963 Pontiac is hot as heck, thanks to a special package tucked snugly away in the trunk, that has everyone from the FBI to armed thugs trying to figure it all out. Sid, against Bob's better judgment, decides to try and get more money for the car. He figures if such a vehicle is worth so much cash, they can drive it off and phone in a ransom. Bad idea. Sid is shot in the car lot when he tries to mess with the car, a friendly mechanic examines the vehicle and discovers its wired to explode if anyone opens the trunk, and some blond headed goon with ice in his eyes seems to pop up all over the place. Meanwhile, the feds outline a bizarre story about a tribe down in South America whose blood is known to rejuvenate sick people, and said tribe suddenly died en masse at exactly the same time the Pontiac started appearing on roads in Central America. Hmmm. Are these two events connected? You bet, but I'm not giving a thing away by revealing this information. The real secret is finding out who's behind the scheme and why it's going down this way.

Like I said, it's obvious the movie was made on the cheap. But it overcomes that obstacle quite nicely with a crackling script, hilarious primary and secondary characters, and the offbeat scenes that fill up the cracks of the main narrative. Let's talk about that last point. Much as Tarentino fills his movies with odd little scenes that don't seem to add much to the primary plot, Carnahan's film does the same. The best example of this technique is the part where Sid and Bob meet up with a guy in a bar to set up the deal for watching the car. This guy claims to have some particularly lascivious information about Johnny Cash's stay at Folsom prison, information he keeps expanding upon much to the disgust of those present. It's utter nonsense that does nothing to get us closer to finding out who wants Sid and Bob to watch the Pontiac, but it's hilarious and gives the film that extra something most extremely low budget efforts lack. I got a big kick out of the conclusion too. The reason why the events unfolded the way they did had me laughing for hours afterwards. Just someone trying to repay a favor! Wonderful! It figures two used car salesmen would give in to greed and destroy a good thing.

In the course of looking up the movie in order to make sure I had the characters' names correct, I noticed that Joe Carnahan made this movie for less than eight thousand dollars. Wow! It looks cheap, but not that cheap. Too, Carnahan went on to write the screenplay for the film "Narc" and is planning a feature based on Mark Bowden's book "Killing Pablo." I wish him the best of luck and, if this movie is any indication, his future efforts ought to merit a look.
July 11, 2005

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