Funny child acting, nonsense sense of distance, bad dubbing and weak dialogue bring down an otherwise magnificent film. A Western remake of Yojimbo, it's remarkable how such a simple story can lend itself to such a great experience. The atmosphere is built up masterfully - with stunning cinematography, striking close-ups, beautifully constructed mise-en-scene, a fantastic performance from Eastwood, Moricone's ever powerful music, and a lovely overabundance of laughing - all culminating in one of the best showdowns in cinematic history.
Even better than I remember. The story was more interesting than I remembered. The Man With No Name is more fun in this movie than I remembered. The side characters are more interesting than I remembered. My only complaints are that some of the acting and parts of the script could be better. This is really epic movie that I would not mind watching again!
I will say the dubbing nature of 'A Fistful of Dollars' is a little distracting early on, but by the time the opening portion concluded I was incredibly interested in what was happening onscreen. The pacing is excellent, thanks to some very fine cinematography, great action sequences and a top notch score.
Clint Westwood debuts as a leading movie star and is terrific throughout, portraying the wonderfully named J̶o̶e̶ "the Man with No Name". It's little surprise these are the films that truly made him. Away from Eastwood, I really enjoy... read the rest.
Leone almost single handedly destroyed the Western.
But it wasn't "single handed" because he had help from the critics who were even bigger hacks than Leone was.
Here, we have a movie based on Yojimbo, which is called a classic by some, though I doubt it is truly a classic. "Seven Samurai" is a classic, but not "Yojimbo".
Still, "Yojimbo" is better than this, because too much is lost in translation here.
It's a thoroughly unmotivated movie about totally unmotivated characters.
The only interesting bit in here is a quip about the equine that No Name (Eastwood) rides.
Well, that's becaus... read the rest.
With barely enough cash to buy a drink, drifter "Joe" (Clint Eastwood) rides into a small, pretty war-torn town near the US/Mexican border. He makes friends with the bar owner "Silvanito" (José Calvo) and pretty quickly finds himself drawn into the brutal quarrelling between "Baxter" (Wolfgang Lukschy) and his nemesis "Rojo" (Gian Maria Volonté). When he kills a few of the former man's troops, it's the brother of the latter who offers him a job. Turns out that "Joe" is a bit more shrewd than that though, and so he decides that the best solution is the enemy of my enemy is not necessarily my fri... read the rest.
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