For A Few Dollars More

My favorite and the best of The Man With No Name trilogy.

This is the best in terms of story, action, and characters. So the story picks up with two bounty hunters on the hunt for one target, both cross paths and they butt heads for a bit but decide it would be easier to work together. So we have a great dynamic between Clint Eastwood and Lee Van Cleef, as they first start off as opposing forces but grow into a good partnership and I think that's what really makes this movie soar above the first. So we get 2 major badass bounty hunters that would give Boba Fett a run for his money, and both have their own character dynamics, but what's a hero without their villain? And this film has one of the most insane, sadistic villains you would ever see in a western, played by the same actor who played the villain in A Fistful Of Dollars. I guess he just does good work as a murderous bandit, go figure. And compared to the first movie, the pace feels much more up beat and well paced, whereas the first movie kinda dragged in places but everything works much better in this movie. Every aspect in terms of story, action, characters, directing, sets, just everything is done to damn near perfection in this movie. I love Lee Van Cleef in this movie as a more heroic bounty hunter than Clint Eastwood's, he is what makes this movie the best to me because of his character, his motivation, and it culminates into a highly satisfying ending. It's my definite example of a spaghetti western, so I definitely say to watch this if you haven't already. You won't be disappointed.

Oh, but we're not done yet! Next, we have what many consider to be the best western ever made. Tomorrow we end with The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly.

A Fistful Of Dollars

Yeah, The Dark Tower got me on a western binge.

So A Fistful Of Dollars was the first spaghetti western released outside of Italy and has gotten quite the reputation in 50 years, it introduced an entire sub genre of westerns to the world, was Clint Eastwood's first major starring role, and combined the efforts of Sergio Leone and Ennio Morricone for the rest of their careers. The plot is more or less a more heavily western version of the Akira Kurosawa film Yojimbo, centered around a stranger who wanders in a small town controlled by two rival families and decides he can make a bit of profit out of it. But of course, not all goes to plan and needless to say none of these people are leaving quietly. It's not all shootouts and double crosses though, there's surprisingly some decent drama and good character in our lead. You don't know much about him, I don't even think they mention his name in the movie, but you get glimpses of who he is. A stone cold killer, but deep down has a heart and Clint Eastwood does it incredibly well. He can play the gunslinger, the manipulator, the fool, and the hero damn near flawlessly, and in a multi-cultural and multi-language production where hardly anybody spoke every language of the people who worked on the movie that must be highly commended! You get a good story, good characters, really decent action, and a conclusion that has been done countless times. And you know what I noticed? This film could almost be done as a pure silent film, you can follow the story from beginning to end without any dialogue spoken. And I really love when movies do that, because it knows that films are a VISUAL medium, show don't tell! When movies are told cinematically, visually, with no exposition or excess dialogue it's a sight to behold. Who would have thought a spaghetti western could work as a silent film? Not me, that's for sure. And while we're at it, the score by Ennio Morricone though minimal is still highly memorable and suits the film just right. True, westerns aren't everybody's cup of tea so I don't expect everyone to see this movie, but for those that do want to see it or have seen it, then you can take my word for it when I say it's good.

So hell, why not? Let's do the other two films. Check back tomorrow for, in my opinion the best of the bunch, For A Few Dollars More.