This movie sucks. I hated it, every last minute that I allowed to waste my time. It's sorta nice to see that movies can still inspire sheer, honest dislike even after being taught to be accommodating about art. But I think that this is where we draw the line, at least with Westerns. This one was filmed in Isreal by Italians and with American/Isreali money, and is a fantastic example of a movie that probably never needed to be made. It is lame, formulaic, predictable, writes itself, contains zero surprises or charisma, works as "anti-fun" in that you could potentially have more fun staring at a blank TV screen, and it sucked the will to live out of my eyeballs. With about four minutes to go I shut the DVD player off and went for a walk.
Hell, I like low budget, foreign made Westerns, especially when they are made by Italians and starring someone like Lee Van Cleef. I even like the "look" of The Holy Land standing in as the wild west, which looks like the moon at times. But I have my limits. This time out Van Cleef gets to play the bad guy, a rapist and leader of a gang of thugs who exist merely to inhabit a very unimaginative Israeli made Western until being killed by the needs of the plot. The main problem is that Van Cleef doesn't make a very evil villain here, which is surprising considering his truly vile Angel Eyes from THE GOOD THE BAD AND THE UGLY. Angel Eyes is the archetype for the Western Gringo Villain. This time out, his character apparently had either plenty of white shirts to change into, or his own laundry delivery out in the middle of the Gobi Desert. He is spotless, suave, well groomed and has the same dry Lee Van Cleef sense of humor -- other than his being a dirtbag and a rapist, I actually kind of liked the guy.
THE PLOT: Leif Garrett plays a 12 year old kid who gets to witness his parents being raped and murdered by Van Cleef's motley bunch of misfits and then spends 40 days and 40 nights in the wild taunting and killing them by such tactics as the poisonous snake in the old saddlebag trick (it's not a rattler but some kind of middle eastern Adder variety, and how the kid gets it into the saddlebags is left to the imagination), the old scorpion in the cowboy boots trick, and other imaginative methods of execution that don't really involve having the kid kill anyone. Eventually he meets up with Jim Brown, who doesn't seem to be very interested in being in the film at all. He plays a prospector and there is an annoying subplot about a group of inbred brothers who try to steal his claim which goes nowhere. I think they were supposed to be funny too, which only adds insult to injury for having to watch their on screen "antics". The only thing more disturbing is the way that Garrett's character reacts to having KILLED people, or at least directly causing their deaths, which is about the same way that he might have reacted to falling off his skateboard. It's not his fault though, because the movie just doesn't care how he might have felt about it.
Eventually there is a big showdown, and if you've ever seen one Western before you'll be able to predict how it ends up, except that by then we have established a sympathy bond with Van Cleef, who never allows himself to really be as scummy as his gang and insists on being protective + helpful to Garrett's kidnapped, jailbaitish sister, and doesn't jump her pretty bones because he has a little bambino back at home who loves his poppa. Like, yeah right. The most annoying aspect of the film is that as you sit there witnessing it's length you can successfully predict what will happen next right up until the moment when I decided I'd had enough of this crap. Maybe something does happen in the final 4 minutes or so that redeems the rest of the movie, but I rather doubt it and am willing to risk the loss, because like the movie itself, I just don't care.
2/10: Check out GOD'S GUN with Van Cleef instead for a better taste of Matzoh Ball Western. Made by the same people in the same place with the same money, and has the distinction of actually being "fun".
Hell, I like low budget, foreign made Westerns, especially when they are made by Italians and starring someone like Lee Van Cleef. I even like the "look" of The Holy Land standing in as the wild west, which looks like the moon at times. But I have my limits. This time out Van Cleef gets to play the bad guy, a rapist and leader of a gang of thugs who exist merely to inhabit a very unimaginative Israeli made Western until being killed by the needs of the plot. The main problem is that Van Cleef doesn't make a very evil villain here, which is surprising considering his truly vile Angel Eyes from THE GOOD THE BAD AND THE UGLY. Angel Eyes is the archetype for the Western Gringo Villain. This time out, his character apparently had either plenty of white shirts to change into, or his own laundry delivery out in the middle of the Gobi Desert. He is spotless, suave, well groomed and has the same dry Lee Van Cleef sense of humor -- other than his being a dirtbag and a rapist, I actually kind of liked the guy.
THE PLOT: Leif Garrett plays a 12 year old kid who gets to witness his parents being raped and murdered by Van Cleef's motley bunch of misfits and then spends 40 days and 40 nights in the wild taunting and killing them by such tactics as the poisonous snake in the old saddlebag trick (it's not a rattler but some kind of middle eastern Adder variety, and how the kid gets it into the saddlebags is left to the imagination), the old scorpion in the cowboy boots trick, and other imaginative methods of execution that don't really involve having the kid kill anyone. Eventually he meets up with Jim Brown, who doesn't seem to be very interested in being in the film at all. He plays a prospector and there is an annoying subplot about a group of inbred brothers who try to steal his claim which goes nowhere. I think they were supposed to be funny too, which only adds insult to injury for having to watch their on screen "antics". The only thing more disturbing is the way that Garrett's character reacts to having KILLED people, or at least directly causing their deaths, which is about the same way that he might have reacted to falling off his skateboard. It's not his fault though, because the movie just doesn't care how he might have felt about it.
Eventually there is a big showdown, and if you've ever seen one Western before you'll be able to predict how it ends up, except that by then we have established a sympathy bond with Van Cleef, who never allows himself to really be as scummy as his gang and insists on being protective + helpful to Garrett's kidnapped, jailbaitish sister, and doesn't jump her pretty bones because he has a little bambino back at home who loves his poppa. Like, yeah right. The most annoying aspect of the film is that as you sit there witnessing it's length you can successfully predict what will happen next right up until the moment when I decided I'd had enough of this crap. Maybe something does happen in the final 4 minutes or so that redeems the rest of the movie, but I rather doubt it and am willing to risk the loss, because like the movie itself, I just don't care.
2/10: Check out GOD'S GUN with Van Cleef instead for a better taste of Matzoh Ball Western. Made by the same people in the same place with the same money, and has the distinction of actually being "fun".