-== QUENTIN: IS HE ORSON YET? ==-

THE YEAR AFTER CITIZEN KANE, ORSON WELLES WENT TO SOUTH AMERica to shoot a film. He staged a Broadway play, starred in his own radio hour. The year after Pulp Fiction, Quentin Tarantino pretty much just went south. He gave endless speeches, endlessly. He appeared in a few films, annoyingly. For his episode of the picture Four Rooms, he made a very bad short movie. He mispronounced Jackie Chan's name on mtv! Actor, writer, director, raconteur: Tarantino was 0 for 4 in '95. Even his staunchest fans wanted Q.T. to be on the q.t.

Welles was a celebrity who tried to be a terrific filmmaker, and did it. Tarantino is a filmmaker trying to be a terrific celebrity; he has so far failed. What he shares with Welles is an ability to wear out his first welcome. The earth turns; people get bored with you.

Well, 1996 is here, and with it a new Tarantino movie, From Dusk Till Dawn. He wrote it; he co-stars in it as the deranged brother of thief George Clooney (a good movie star turn: he seizes the screen and melts it). There are sick twists: murder, rape, unnecessary evil. By the end, they're the good guys.

Dusk/Dawn has tropes patented by Tarantino and phenom director Robert Rodriguez (who isn't Welles either): an early, ugly heist in a bar or restaurant; a briefcase full of bills; a hole in the hand. The film's first half is clever, off-putting. Then they go to a disco inferno; juvenilia gives way to saturnalia; and it's like you parachuted into a mosh pit. Bloody this, Naugahyde that. Some scenes may be too intense for human beings.

For the first time in a while, however, Tarantino gives the hint he might belong before a camera. He's interesting as the tall, quietish geek--back row, junior high--who is either a chemistry genius or Hannibal Lecter's idiot son. It's a creepily soft performance with jagged spurs.

Tarantino aspires to the convict culture, not to Welles' Federal Theater. One man co-wrote a book on Shakespeare at 16; the other worked in a video store at 27, writing scripts like From Dusk Till Dawn and advising his clientele on which Sonny Chiba film to spend a lonely evening with. Both are gifted guys. But, as the '90s are the anti-'40s, Tarantino is the anti-Orson. --R.C.