From Dusk Till Dawn directed by Robert Rodriguez

There are a number of reasons why From Dusk Till Dawn should have been a brilliant film. The screenplay was written by Quentin Tarantino, who also co-starred. It was directed by Robert Rodriguez, the man who directed Desperado, in which Tarantino played a guy who told a joke and died. The brilliant Harvey Keitel was in it, and he was also brilliant in Reservoir Dogs and Pulp Fiction, both directed by Tarantino. Juliette Lewis was there, fresh from Natural Born Killers, story by Tarantino. And there were sundry other actors with Tarantino connections - Salma Hayek, Cheech Marin, Danny Trejo. In other words, it's a Tarantino movie in almost every way. It can't possibly be bad.

The first half wasn't bad - in fact, the first half was great. Tarantino was hypnotic as the terrifying psycho, the fucked-up younger brother with the disarmingly high pitched voice, the man who makes the earth shake when he looks into a woman's eyes. The first half feels like it was directed by Tarantino. It's scary and bloody and also bloody hilarious, like all of his best films. Right up until the two desperadoes cross the Mexican border, the first half was really going somewhere.

Then, just as we're wondering how Tarantino's dangerous serial rapist character will cope with being forced to drink whisky from Salma Hayek's foot at a strip club, she turns into a vampire and the whole thing turns to pot.

Now would probably be a good time to mention that George Clooney has the lead role.

Don't get me wrong, George Clooney is a pretty good actor, but he's not best suited to a Tarantino-style film. Nor are vampires. The ensuing battle with hordes of the undead, who mysteriously appear for no apparent reason after the heroes have dealt to the first wave of fanged strippers and patrons, is just boring. The sole exception is a conversation in which the five remaining humans try to work out what useful things the movies have told them about vampires. As an attempt to make fun of the situation it's feeble, and as Tarantino humour it's worse than nothing.

There's a story here somewhere - a story about Tarantino giving up on his screenplay halfway through and handing it to someone else to finish; or about some realisation on his part that all his films deal with the same essential themes and a corresponding desire for something different. Or maybe even a falling-out with Rodriguez, though I'd hope not. No way is From Dusk Till Dawn, as we see it here, the same film that Tarantino initially set out to write. Something, somewhere, must have gone wrong.

Unless it's all a big joke on his fans. That would be just exactly the sort of thing he would do. Although if that were the case I'd have expected there to be more blood, really.