During the Mexican Revolution, Chuncho is a bandit running guns for peasant leader Elias. Whilst robbing an army supply train, Chuncho meets Nino, an unusual American, who wants to join his group and seems to have a great interest in meeting Elias ...
This distinctive Italian western has several great things going for it - a fine cast, a stylish score by Luis Bacalov, lots of exciting action scenes - but its real asset is a terrific story by Salvatore Laurani and Franco Solinas. The scripts for many spaghetti westerns are just simple revenge dramas, but this has real character depth and a powerful political context, forcing the uneducated Chuncho to decide what he really believes in. Is he an outlaw, or a champion of the poor, or simply a mercenary like Nino. He may not be very smart - he's unable to read or even count, and he doesn't realise Nino's real mission when other men would - but in the end he does the right thing for his country and for the revolution. The other characters are equally multi-faceted; El Santo views the fight as a crusade for God's justice, Nino may be a cold killer but he's (mostly) honest, up-front and doesn't double-cross Chuncho when it would be so easy to do so, and Adelita is one of the few powerful and independent women in these movies, who holds her own, fights for herself, and isn't interested in macho bravado. Volonté, Kinski and gorgeous dark-haired British-Jamaican Beswick (check her out also in One Million Years B.C. and Dr Jekyll & Sister Hyde) are all terrific but perhaps the real find is Colombian actor Castel as the enigmatic Nino/Tate. With his grey suit, fastidious nature and let's-get-on-with-it attitude he is unlike anybody else and a perfect opposites-attract match for the rip-roaring Chuncho, and it's through him and his callous disregard for the Mexican people and their struggle for identity that the movie really scores. Damiano's direction is solid, and he deserves plaudits for making a lefty art-house picture disguised as a contemporary entertainment. Like so many Italian films of the period, this movie has several titles; the original is Quién Sabe ? (translating in Spanish as "Who knows ?"), but it is perhaps better known by the US title A Bullet For The General, and is also sometimes subtitled El Chucho (meaning mutt/dog in Spanish, which is a perfect description of Volonté's character, despite the missing letter). A stylish, thought-provoking and well-acted western for the discerning cult movie enthusiast.
This distinctive Italian western has several great things going for it - a fine cast, a stylish score by Luis Bacalov, lots of exciting action scenes - but its real asset is a terrific story by Salvatore Laurani and Franco Solinas. The scripts for many spaghetti westerns are just simple revenge dramas, but this has real character depth and a powerful political context, forcing the uneducated Chuncho to decide what he really believes in. Is he an outlaw, or a champion of the poor, or simply a mercenary like Nino. He may not be very smart - he's unable to read or even count, and he doesn't realise Nino's real mission when other men would - but in the end he does the right thing for his country and for the revolution. The other characters are equally multi-faceted; El Santo views the fight as a crusade for God's justice, Nino may be a cold killer but he's (mostly) honest, up-front and doesn't double-cross Chuncho when it would be so easy to do so, and Adelita is one of the few powerful and independent women in these movies, who holds her own, fights for herself, and isn't interested in macho bravado. Volonté, Kinski and gorgeous dark-haired British-Jamaican Beswick (check her out also in One Million Years B.C. and Dr Jekyll & Sister Hyde) are all terrific but perhaps the real find is Colombian actor Castel as the enigmatic Nino/Tate. With his grey suit, fastidious nature and let's-get-on-with-it attitude he is unlike anybody else and a perfect opposites-attract match for the rip-roaring Chuncho, and it's through him and his callous disregard for the Mexican people and their struggle for identity that the movie really scores. Damiano's direction is solid, and he deserves plaudits for making a lefty art-house picture disguised as a contemporary entertainment. Like so many Italian films of the period, this movie has several titles; the original is Quién Sabe ? (translating in Spanish as "Who knows ?"), but it is perhaps better known by the US title A Bullet For The General, and is also sometimes subtitled El Chucho (meaning mutt/dog in Spanish, which is a perfect description of Volonté's character, despite the missing letter). A stylish, thought-provoking and well-acted western for the discerning cult movie enthusiast.