Pretty amusing spag western actually... Gian Maria Volontè is at his absolute best, and Klaus Kinski also does some great character work as a revolutionary religious man who does the Lord's killing for Him. Lou Castel's performance as "Nino" was relatively underwhelming it's one of those cases where the director apparently thought less is more. I just find the character somewhat one-dimensional and Castel didn't do anything to make it hold up. Martine Beswick gave some good performances in other films I've seen (particularly "Dr. Jeckyll and Sister Hyde") but was nothing special here, just eye- candy with a lot of rogue.
The story is an interesting one, although even without the revealing American title its path might have been fairly predictable. I did think it was interesting that the film gradually shifted our sympathies from the Yankee Nino who obviously has ulterior motives that we more and more suspect are not motivated by morality to the initially stereotyped "bandito" El Chucho, played by Volonte. Basically this shift in our sympathies, if it works, represents the film's main political statement. The film plays with our expectations that the white man with a hidden agenda will turn out to be the good guy. I think after he accomplishes his task we're supposed to begin hating him, but I for one found the portrayal of the General to be overly static, as if the director wanted to present him as a kind of god-like figure. So in the end I wouldn't have had a problem with El Chucho going to America with El Nino, which means in some respects the film just did not work for me. I thought Kinski's priest character was twisted and I couldn't get upset about what happened to him either. So while my sympathies definitely shifted towards El Chucho, I didn't buy into the revolution he was supposed to be rejoining and I wish he had simply decided to go off on his own path, with or without El Chucho, instead of returning to that tarnished idealism.
The directing is solid but unexceptional, reaching its peak during the action sequences early in the film. I've heard the film compared to Leone's films or the best of Corbucci's Westerns. Although it bears some comparison to Leone's "Duck, You Sucker" and Corbucci's "The Mercenary", I personally didn't feel the action was quite as intense, nor the characters as interesting as in those films. For one thing, this film really only has one convincing or intriguing character, El Chucho. Kinski's priest "El Santo" is fun to watch but utterly without dimension, and Castel's Nino was neither fun to watch nor interesting. In contrast "The Mercenary" and "Duck, You Sucker" each have at least 2 compelling characters, and the relationship between the American and the Mexican isn't nearly as interesting as what Leone did with the Irishman and the Mexican in his film about the Mexican Revolution.
Still, if you forget about perhaps superior Westerns or superior Spag-westerns that you've seen, and just take the movie on its own merits, it's at least a reasonably entertaining picture and has some interesting surprises if you don't sit and think about it too much while you're watching it.
The story is an interesting one, although even without the revealing American title its path might have been fairly predictable. I did think it was interesting that the film gradually shifted our sympathies from the Yankee Nino who obviously has ulterior motives that we more and more suspect are not motivated by morality to the initially stereotyped "bandito" El Chucho, played by Volonte. Basically this shift in our sympathies, if it works, represents the film's main political statement. The film plays with our expectations that the white man with a hidden agenda will turn out to be the good guy. I think after he accomplishes his task we're supposed to begin hating him, but I for one found the portrayal of the General to be overly static, as if the director wanted to present him as a kind of god-like figure. So in the end I wouldn't have had a problem with El Chucho going to America with El Nino, which means in some respects the film just did not work for me. I thought Kinski's priest character was twisted and I couldn't get upset about what happened to him either. So while my sympathies definitely shifted towards El Chucho, I didn't buy into the revolution he was supposed to be rejoining and I wish he had simply decided to go off on his own path, with or without El Chucho, instead of returning to that tarnished idealism.
The directing is solid but unexceptional, reaching its peak during the action sequences early in the film. I've heard the film compared to Leone's films or the best of Corbucci's Westerns. Although it bears some comparison to Leone's "Duck, You Sucker" and Corbucci's "The Mercenary", I personally didn't feel the action was quite as intense, nor the characters as interesting as in those films. For one thing, this film really only has one convincing or intriguing character, El Chucho. Kinski's priest "El Santo" is fun to watch but utterly without dimension, and Castel's Nino was neither fun to watch nor interesting. In contrast "The Mercenary" and "Duck, You Sucker" each have at least 2 compelling characters, and the relationship between the American and the Mexican isn't nearly as interesting as what Leone did with the Irishman and the Mexican in his film about the Mexican Revolution.
Still, if you forget about perhaps superior Westerns or superior Spag-westerns that you've seen, and just take the movie on its own merits, it's at least a reasonably entertaining picture and has some interesting surprises if you don't sit and think about it too much while you're watching it.