For a Few Dollars More
The man with no name is back... the man in black is waiting... a walking arsenal - he uncoils, strikes and kills!
Overview
Two bounty hunters are in pursuit of "El Indio," one of the most wanted fugitives in the western territories, and his gang.
I have to admit that I had been putting off this movie for a while. Not because I didn’t want to see it. To the contrary, I really wanted to see it. As you may have noticed the bulk of my recent reviews were for films made by Woody Allen and Sergio Leone. I have become a huge fan of both of these film makers and I’ve been trying to space out their last few classics that I had yet to see.
This film is the second in the trilogy known as either “Dollars” or “The Man With No Name”. The first in the series is A Fistful of Dollars and the last is The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. I had watched the series out of order but quite honestly this did not matter in any way. Many of the same actors appeared in all three but in no way were they the same characters (with the possible exception of Clint Eastwood’s character, who supposedly didn’t have a name after references to his name in this film were cut out by the movie studio).
I know I’ve said this before but I always said that I wasn’t a fan of Westerns. Aren’t we all supposed to say that? I say that about other things (country music, comics with props and women’s basketball, to name a few) but I know why I feel the way I do about them. I don’t know where I got the belief that a Western couldn’t be good. After all, isn’t movie making about telling an engaging story? Isn’t that where George Lucas screwed up the Star Wars series? The first three movies told a great story and gave us characters that we genuinely cared about (even if the story was written to appeal to 7th graders). Who really cared about the special effects? I can’t remember the last time I watched a movie and was wowed by cgi. And why is it that our best Westerns were made by an Italian writer/director and filmed in Spain? We won’t watch Westerns but we have no problem running out like sheep to watch the next Adam Sandler movie.
Leone gives us an interesting twist to the notion that the audience has to connect to the characters. In this trilogy (and in the wonderful Once Upon a Time in the West) the characters are generally neither good nor bad. You didn’t particularly care about the characters nor did you need to know where they came from nor where they were going. The viewer is just dropped into the middle of a scenario and this allows the user to focus on the brilliant story. The fact that you know nothing about the characters (nor do they know anything about each other) brings a certain amount of suspense to the mix.
The traditional Leone trappings are front and center in this movie – musical score, wide shots, close shots, long stretches of silence, etc. I’ve rehashed those in some of the other reviews so I don’t need to do it again here.
In closing… I was actually sad when I finished this film as I had seen the whole trilogy. I’m sorry, all three films together were night-and-day better than the Godfather trilogy. I look forward to giving some of Leone’s lesser-known movies a chance. And I look forward to giving some other Western’s a shot too.
IHATEBadMovies.com reviews For a Few Dollars More
Movie title: For a Few Dollars More
Movie description: Two bounty hunters are in pursuit of "El Indio," one of the most wanted fugitives in the western territories, and his gang.
Date published: 2008-06-04
Director(s): Sergio Leone
Actor(s): Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef, Gian Maria Volonté, Mario Brega, Klaus Kinski, Luigi Pistilli, Aldo Sambrell, Benito Stefanelli, Luis Rodríguez, Panos Papadopulos, Mara Krupp, Josef Egger, Tomás Blanco, Roberto Camardiel, Lorenzo Robledo, Sergio Mendizábal, Dante Maggio, Mario Meniconi, Werner Abrolat, Frank Braña, José Canalejas, Antonio Molino Rojo, Nazzareno Natale, Román Ariznavarreta, Sergio Leone, Rosemary Dexter, Peter Lee Lawrence, Jesús Guzmán, José Marco, Guillermo Méndez, Enrique Navarro, Ricardo Palacios, Antoñito Ruiz, Carlo Simi, José Terrón, Kurt Zips, Rafael López, José Félix Montoya, Aldo Ricci
Genre: Western
My Review
I have to admit that I had been putting off this movie for a while. Not because I didn’t want to see it. To the contrary, I really wanted to see it. As you may have noticed the bulk of my recent reviews were for films made by Woody Allen and Sergio Leone. I have become a huge fan of both of these film makers and I’ve been trying to space out their last few classics that I had yet to see.
This film is the second in the trilogy known as either “Dollars” or “The Man With No Name”. The first in the series is A Fistful of Dollars and the last is The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. I had watched the series out of order but quite honestly this did not matter in any way. Many of the same actors appeared in all three but in no way were they the same characters (with the possible exception of Clint Eastwood’s character, who supposedly didn’t have a name after references to his name in this film were cut out by the movie studio).
I know I’ve said this before but I always said that I wasn’t a fan of Westerns. Aren’t we all supposed to say that? I say that about other things (country music, comics with props and women’s basketball, to name a few) but I know why I feel the way I do about them. I don’t know where I got the belief that a Western couldn’t be good. After all, isn’t movie making about telling an engaging story? Isn’t that where George Lucas screwed up the Star Wars series? The first three movies told a great story and gave us characters that we genuinely cared about (even if the story was written to appeal to 7th graders). Who really cared about the special effects? I can’t remember the last time I watched a movie and was wowed by cgi. And why is it that our best Westerns were made by an Italian writer/director and filmed in Spain? We won’t watch Westerns but we have no problem running out like sheep to watch the next Adam Sandler movie.
Leone gives us an interesting twist to the notion that the audience has to connect to the characters. In this trilogy (and in the wonderful Once Upon a Time in the West) the characters are generally neither good nor bad. You didn’t particularly care about the characters nor did you need to know where they came from nor where they were going. The viewer is just dropped into the middle of a scenario and this allows the user to focus on the brilliant story. The fact that you know nothing about the characters (nor do they know anything about each other) brings a certain amount of suspense to the mix.
The traditional Leone trappings are front and center in this movie – musical score, wide shots, close shots, long stretches of silence, etc. I’ve rehashed those in some of the other reviews so I don’t need to do it again here.
In closing… I was actually sad when I finished this film as I had seen the whole trilogy. I’m sorry, all three films together were night-and-day better than the Godfather trilogy. I look forward to giving some of Leone’s lesser-known movies a chance. And I look forward to giving some other Western’s a shot too.
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My Review - 9.5/10
9.5/10