A Town Has Turned to Dust (1998)

Terrible acting, screenplay and direction.

Blending excellent reporting and strong storytelling, this is a disturbing film truly stranger than fiction

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

A Town Has Turned to Dust is not great, and has things wrong with it. However, I didn't think it was that bad. The storytelling is uneven, sometimes it is thoughtful and elegiac, but in others it it awkward and disjointed. The special effects are not up to scratch either, in fact they are lacking in their design and some have no reason to be there. The message the film has that racism and oppression are timeless is well-meaning but felt rather dated to me. The pacing is also rather sluggish at times so the more disjointed scenes of the film lack momentum. However, the film is shot well and has beautiful scenery. The soundtrack is decent, and the script is thankfully not cheesy but has a touch of thoughtfulness. The characters, especially Stephen Lang's are clichéd in hindsight(I have seen the drunken sheriff character so many times) but actually manage to be interesting. Ron Perlman's character is surprisingly multifaceted. Lang and Frankie Avina give good performances, but the best thing about A Town Has Turned To Dust is Perlman, while essentially ruthless you do feel some element of sympathy for him. So overall, a decent attempt at a western but doesn't quite come off as well as it could have done. 6/10 Bethany Cox

Hardly original, taking elements from certain movies including Mad Max. The story in A Town Has Turned To Dust is about two classes of people trying to make a living on an earth which is almost uninhabitable and some reporter goes to earth to do a story about these people mining scrap metal. This movie is chucked full of morality and has the people looking within themselves and seeing what they've become. Some fairly big named actors could ruin their career by starring in an average made for TV movie like this but Ron Perlman seems to get away with it. Perlman is the only good thing about this movie so unless you are a total Perlman fan and need to see all his films i recommend you leave this alone and save 90 minutes of your life. Shame because with more money and a better story this film could have been good. 5/10

A Town Has Turned To Dust is a good movie with great acting. It is a story set in the future with age old problems. The actors all did a wonderful job, especially Ron Perlman and Frankie Avina. Frankie Avina as Tooth was a man oppressed by the ones who ruled over him. He didn't believe his brother would get justice but was accepting of what was happening. But after the awful event happens he stands up and fights back. I thought he was excellent. Ron Perlman's character you hated but felt sorry for him too. I would like to see more movies like this and I would love to see more movies with Frankie Avina and Ron Perlman.

A Town Has Turned to Dust is hand above the average schlock that comes out under the handle "A Sci-Fi Channel Original Movie". Honestly, with their key demographic, why do they foist things like "Bombshell" and "Cyberjack" on us?This movie, however, is different. Apparently based on a Rod Serling script , A Town Has Turned To Dust combines strong story telling, subtle effects, and well wrangled acting to form an enjoyable and thoughtful story.Ron Perlman's character is surprisingly multi-faceted and can be identified with though his actions might be considered reprehensible.All in all, this was a very strong piece of film making. I hope we see more of its style on the Sci-Fi Channel.