I've been ordering me a storm of cheap-ass DVD's lately, and two of happened to be Reservoir Dogs (fantastic movie and likely one of my favourite of Tarantino's) and True Romance (Easily one of my favourite action-crime-romance-stoner movies of all time, which, coincidentally was the movie career debut for Tarantino with his writing of the script). I've already seen them, though Holy-Shag are they still a pair of brilliant flicks. What they both have in common--minus being Crime Movies, with Tarantino's involvement and also featuring Chris Penn, I guess--is they both end climatically with a Mexican Standoff; a standoff between a group of factions where every man is being stared down by a gun-sight and every faction is bound to suffer losses.
Reservoir Dogs is pretty straight forward far as they go, three guys all with pistols aiming at one another. There's the oft-brought up debate about who killed Nice Guy Eddie, but putting that aside it's still a bare-bones but non-the-less appropriately tense three-way. True Romance, however, is a fucking crazy house, with at least 10 guys all packing a variety of not only pistols, but shotguns and sub-machine skin-blistering motherfuckers. The standoff for Reservoir Dogs goes down pretty smoothly for the most part, and in only a matter of maybe 2 seconds? True Romance's instead opts for a complete massacre, that goes on for a short while, what with so many bodies to be dropped. Even with its sheer insanity and over-blown proportions, watching it now still has my gut twisting itself as I wait for Lee to throw the hot tea all over Elliot. Not to mention that True Romance features a huge cast of likeable characters, played by a huge cast of likeable character actors and/or soon-to-be lead actors, most of which are all huddled for this orgy of death, making it all the more incredibly nerve-wracking.
The whole Mexican Standoff thing is more of a cliche these days, but damn it is a fun one to watch across the years. Got me thinking then as to what others are out there and just what are peoples of the Giant Bombs favouritezezez. The most predictable would be the one from The Good The Bad and The Ugly, though since I saw that actual standoff before I saw the whole movie, it didn't have as much of an impact. I also put from ''fictional media'' because it got me curious to thinking how many there are in video-games and if there are any particularly notable entries. Plenty of duels to be sure (from RDR alone, naturally), though Mexican Standoffs? None really come to mind.
Anywhoo yeah, what be your favourites from this long-lasting trope? For reference, here's also the True Romance Mexican Clusterfuck (though I'd recommend if anyone hasn't already seen it, and likes themselves some colourful, characteristic crime movies, that they instead just watch the whole movie through)
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