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 The Sergio Leone "spaghetti westerns" did not simply add a new chapter to the genre...they reinvented it. From his shockingly violent and stylized breakthrough, A Fistful Of Dollars, to the film Quentin Tarantino calls "the best-directed movie of all time," The Good, The Bad And The Ugly, Leone's vision did for westerns what talkies did for all movies back in the 1920s: it elevated them to an entirely new art form. Fully restored, presented in high definition with their best-ever audio, and including audio commentaries, featurettes and more, these films are much more than the definitive Leone collection...they are the most ambitious and influential westerns ever made Storyline: Monco is a bounty killer chasing El Indio and his gang. During his hunting, he meets Col. Douglas Mortimer, another bounty killer, and they decide to make a partnership, chase the bad guys together and split the reward. During their enterprise, there will be lots of bullets and funny situations. In the end, one of the bounty hunters shows the real intention of his hunting. Written by Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil Reviewer's Note: Reviewed by Casey Broadwater, June 8, 2010 -- When John Wayne rode the plains, life was pretty simple for a gunslinger. Heroes wore white hats and treated their women kindly, while villains sauntered into town in ten-gallons worth of black, their upper lips hardened into permanent sneers. The Law of the West was a balancing act between freedom and justice. Good was good, bad was bad, and moral ambiguity just plain hadn't been invented yet. The reality of westward expansion, however, was a great deal less grounded in ethical certainties, and I've always thought the myth of the noble West was a ploy to help us feel better about how we treated the Native Americans. Hollywood embraced the western for its easy-to-script, good vs. evil, let's get out there and show 'em how Americans get 'r done ethos, but after churning out title after title, the formula began to lose its potency. In the meantime, Europeans—most of whom had never even been to the wild, wild West—were putting new spins on the genre and paying close attention to what might as well be called the "eastern." Yes, the samurai movie. Inspired by Akira Kurasawa's Yojimbo, a film about a masterless swordsmen plying his steel-edged trade for cold hard cash, Italian director Sergio Leone would create a different, cynical kind of western, where good was relative and bad was more than just an attitude. For the traditional Hollywood cowpoke tale, things were about to get ugly. In Japan, Yojimbo was followed almost immediately by Sanjuro, but after getting sued by Akira Kurasawa for A Fistful of Dollars' uncanny resemblance to the first film, Sergio Leone wasn't about to remake its sequel. Instead, he wisely followed up Fistful with a story of his own creation. For A Few Dollars More finds the director expanding on the themes and visual touchstones established in his previous film, and the result is a production that's much more mature, narratively complex, and polished, even if content-wise it's just as raw and gritty. Clint Eastwood returns as The Man With No Name—a marketing gimmick dreamed up at MGM—only this time, we learn he's "said to go by the name of 'Manco,'" which roughly translates to "lame in one hand." And while he's not actually lame, he does do just about everything left- handed, if only to keep his right hand—his gun hand—always at the ready. The character is still a complete enigma, a man without a past. Is he supposed to be "Joe" from Fistful? The matching poncho, black jeans, and cigarillos say yes, but we can't be sure. The mystery broadens the character; he's no longer just a man, he's an entire archetype unto himself—the nameless wanderer, the itinerant gunslinger, hellfire on a horse. The film begins with a title card that reads, "Where life had no value, death, sometimes, had its price. That is why the bounty killers appeared." Straight off we're introduced to Colonel Douglas Mortimer (Lee Van Cleef), an inveterate vigilante who smokes an enormous yellow pipe and carries his own personal arsenal of firearms—the right gun for every situation. This is a man accustomed to dealing out death for money, and we see a calm, almost bemused reserve on his face as he assembles his extended-stock pistol while the bandit he's hunting fires at him from out of range. He's a specialist, a thinker, who has somehow survived in this trade until "almost fifty years of age." Manco's approach to bounty killing is more reckless, ballsy even. We see him initiate a shootout in a saloon with nary a flinch; when the last bandit standing—or rather, crawling— reaches for a pistol on the ground, Manco kills him without even looking. Badass. Eventually, these two bounty hunters meet face to face and, after sizing each other up in a pistol-shooting game of one-upmanship—Mortimer wins, keeping Manco's hat in the air with several shots—form a shaky partnership, based on mutual distrust. Both men, for separate reasons, are looking for El Indio (Gian Maria Volontè), a heartless, reefer-smoking criminal—everyone smokes something in these films, be it a cigarillo, a pipe, or a joint—who plans on robbing the heaviest guarded bank in El Paso. Manco infiltrates Indio's gang while Mortimer keeps watch from the outside, but when their scheme is discovered, it'll take a whole lot of trickery and gunplay to get them their reward—a $27,000 bounty. The violence is more intense, the themes are more pronounced, and For A Few Dollars More is bigger and more accomplished—in just about every way—than its predecessor. You can practically see everyone involved settling into a kind of swagger, Eastwood most of all, as he seems completely at home in the character here, allowing himself more leeway for comedic moments. Like Steve McQueen, a rising star after The Magnificent Seven, Eastwood exudes effortless cool. Unlike McQueen, though, who basically tried to steal the show from Yul Brynner in Magnificent—waving his hat around and doing anything he could to attract onscreen attention—Eastwood's performance is economically pared down to the essentials, minimal expression, minimal movement, minimal dialogue. (Leone once joked that Clint had two expressions, with the hat, and without the hat.) And this makes him a commanding presence. Lee Van Cleef is just as good. After playing second-fiddle in numerous 1950's westerns, he makes the most here out of his first sizeable starring role. Watching his motivations unravel is one of the film's greatest subtleties—it's ultimately satisfying to learn why he's really after Indio—and his nearly father/son-style repartee with Eastwood gives the movie unexpected depth. Since Leone made For A Few Dollars More for more than just a few more dollars than its predecessor— $600,000, compared to $200,000—his directorial performance also seems more confident. His frame are filled with movement, the town seems more alive than Fistful's San Miguel, and the gunfights are more tensely choreographed. Far from just a warm-up for his masterpiece, The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly—though it is that, as well—For A Few Dollars More is a piece of audacious filmmaking that continues to evolve Leone's conception of the ignoble west. It goes without saying that The Man With No Name trilogy belongs in every western fan's collection. These three films cataclysmically altered the course of the genre, and launched steely-eyed Clint Eastwood into super-stardom. Recommended. Cast Notes: Clint Eastwood (The Man With No Name [Manco]), Lee Van Cleef (Colonel Douglas Mortimer), Gian Maria Volonté (Indio), Luigi Pistilli (Groggy), Joseph Egger (Old Prophet), Mario Brega [I] (Nino), Klaus Kinski (Hunchback), Mara Krup (Hotel Manager's Wife), Tomás Blanco [I]), Aldo Sambrell (Cuchillo), Roberto Camardiel (Station Clerk), Benito Stefanelli (Luke,a member of Indio's gang), Panos Papadopulos), Luis Rodríguez [I]), Diana Rabito (Girl in tub). IMDb Rating (07/24/14): 8.4/10 from 110,219 users Top 250: #97 IMDb Rating (05/07/12): 8.3/10 from 67,991 users Top 250: #119 IMDb Rating (08/29/10): 8.3/10 from 43,531 users Top 250: #121
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