I saw this movie on cable television. It played right after The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly. Talk about day and then night.
When I saw that it starred Lee Van Cleef, and heard the catchy theme song, I thought, hey, maybe this will be good.
But alas, Lee Van Cleef went from the Bad to the Bad Movie. As far as I am concerned, there are only three Spaghetti Westerns, and Return of Sabata is a perfect example why. These imitations don't measure up.
Van Cleef makes a valiant effort as the cool cat Sabata who always finds a way to win. But as he is not countered by any competent antagonist, his efforts are wasted. The movies' arch-villain McKintock is evil enough, but hapless (why doesn't he just have a bunch of guys with shotguns assassinate Sabata?) and surrounded by clownish lackeys with no sand.
These themes are established early: Sabata always knows what's going on, and Sabata always wins. It seems half the film consists of McKintock's men challenging Sabata to one gambling contest after another, then trying to trick or cheat him, only to find that Sabata cheats better. Many of these scenes end with Sabata pulling a gun at some clever time, including a small-caliber barrel hidden up his sleeve. Somehow no one ever decides to draw before he does, and time and again, a roomful of armed hostiles is mysteriously cowed. Van Cleef wears a Cool Hand Luke air throughout, but the effect is to turn him into a kind of god-figure. He can get the drop on dozens of men at once? Who can challenge him, then, in this town full of cowards? Yawn.
The non-gambling parts of this film seem to be inspired by the director belatedly realizing that it needs to involve more than just harping on Sabata's gambling prowess. Even the positive comments on this page admit that the plot is unfathomable in a single viewing. It's worse; it's as though they shot a bunch of random western-themed scenes, then tried to edit them into a movie. The characters are shallow Western clichés with no substance, and their motives are mostly "I'm-with-Sabata" or "I'm-with-McKintock." And what is going on, and why, is rarely explained. At one point, Clyde suddenly jump into a horse-drawn cart and make off with the loot. But he doesn't get far before his cart loses a wheel and Sabata is there to coolly chide him for his impish treachery. What, Clyde was planning to steal the loot? Why did the wheel fall off? How did Sabata know he was going to do it?
The entire film is one take after another of Someone Tries to do Something Against Sabata, leading up to Sabata Wins, Hands Down. Even when the movie bothers to explain just HOW Sabata wins, it wears too thin to hold the attention. Kind of like Superman in the Wild West, with no super-villains or Kryptonite. If you've seen one scene, you've seen the whole film. See it if you like bad movies that critics whitewash as "rollicking." But see it for free, it's not worth paying for.
When I saw that it starred Lee Van Cleef, and heard the catchy theme song, I thought, hey, maybe this will be good.
But alas, Lee Van Cleef went from the Bad to the Bad Movie. As far as I am concerned, there are only three Spaghetti Westerns, and Return of Sabata is a perfect example why. These imitations don't measure up.
Van Cleef makes a valiant effort as the cool cat Sabata who always finds a way to win. But as he is not countered by any competent antagonist, his efforts are wasted. The movies' arch-villain McKintock is evil enough, but hapless (why doesn't he just have a bunch of guys with shotguns assassinate Sabata?) and surrounded by clownish lackeys with no sand.
These themes are established early: Sabata always knows what's going on, and Sabata always wins. It seems half the film consists of McKintock's men challenging Sabata to one gambling contest after another, then trying to trick or cheat him, only to find that Sabata cheats better. Many of these scenes end with Sabata pulling a gun at some clever time, including a small-caliber barrel hidden up his sleeve. Somehow no one ever decides to draw before he does, and time and again, a roomful of armed hostiles is mysteriously cowed. Van Cleef wears a Cool Hand Luke air throughout, but the effect is to turn him into a kind of god-figure. He can get the drop on dozens of men at once? Who can challenge him, then, in this town full of cowards? Yawn.
The non-gambling parts of this film seem to be inspired by the director belatedly realizing that it needs to involve more than just harping on Sabata's gambling prowess. Even the positive comments on this page admit that the plot is unfathomable in a single viewing. It's worse; it's as though they shot a bunch of random western-themed scenes, then tried to edit them into a movie. The characters are shallow Western clichés with no substance, and their motives are mostly "I'm-with-Sabata" or "I'm-with-McKintock." And what is going on, and why, is rarely explained. At one point, Clyde suddenly jump into a horse-drawn cart and make off with the loot. But he doesn't get far before his cart loses a wheel and Sabata is there to coolly chide him for his impish treachery. What, Clyde was planning to steal the loot? Why did the wheel fall off? How did Sabata know he was going to do it?
The entire film is one take after another of Someone Tries to do Something Against Sabata, leading up to Sabata Wins, Hands Down. Even when the movie bothers to explain just HOW Sabata wins, it wears too thin to hold the attention. Kind of like Superman in the Wild West, with no super-villains or Kryptonite. If you've seen one scene, you've seen the whole film. See it if you like bad movies that critics whitewash as "rollicking." But see it for free, it's not worth paying for.