Movie Review: Flesh and Bullets

Review By: James DePaolo

On March 1989 the film industry lost the man who could be singled out for my blindness, Carlos Tobalina. To me, he was one of the king of the adult film world with his love of romancing the camera and getting those shots that other directors seem to stray from. When I heard he did a film that was not a porn my first reaction was that it was a porn in hiding, but needless to say this film is nowhere near porn which still should be said, it is a good enough film to recommend nonetheless.

The humor for me comes from the fact that the original print of the film he changed his name to hide the fact of who he was. In a somewhat odd retelling of sorts from Alfred Hitchcock’s Stranger on a Train, we meet two unhappy married men both of whom have shady pasts meet in Vegas and hatch a scheme to murder one another’s ex-wives. Well as you can guess there will be a catch to this plan and each of them fall in love with the other’s ex.

Flesh and Bullets is fun exploitation for the grindhouse era. It is junk food trash for the eyes to masturbate to. This film has so much to really get behind that I hate to ding it for the pacing and the bad script, but that I feel made this film what they are even though at times they did feel weak. This film has a porn mentality without actual porn, it has situations that are so farfetched that you know a sick mind could only get them on paper. I really enjoyed the nostalgia trip into one of my favorite porn directors non porn past films.

For a newcomer, Flesh and Bullets is just a good little suspenseful film that really works its way from start to finish into your system without letting you breathe. Funny at times, corny at others but most of all fun throughout, this film is definitely worth a watch.