Scott LeBrun The original "Sabata" is just good, solid Spaghetti Western escapism directed with flair by Gianfranco Parolini. It benefits from an interesting bunch of characters, "good" guys and bad guys alike, characters who are all zestfully played by a well chosen cast. The music by Marcello Giombini is good enough to rival the work of Ennio Morricone, with eclectic use of banjos and organs. The picture is extremely well shot in the 2.35:1 aspect ratio by Sandro Mancori, with great use of Spanish and Italian locations. Of course, what really makes it irresistible is the presence of Lee Van Cleef, who's deliciously devious as the title character. He was truly a natural for this type of film.Sabata is a mysterious gunslinger who comes to the small town of Daugherty City. One night, an ingenious plot to remove an Army safe from the town bank is pulled off. What Sabata learns is that it's the arrogant fat cats in town who masterminded the theft so that they could purchase land on which a railroad will be built. What follows is that Sabata makes a number of attempts to blackmail these pompous jerks, constantly increasing his price, while they keep trying to keep him quiet. Fortunately, Sabata has made alliances with characters such as Carrincha (Ignazio Spalla) and the mute, acrobatic "Alley Cat" (Bruno Ukmar).Van Cleef is fun, but so too is the charismatic William Berger as the musician "Banjo". He's just as hard to read as Sabata; you're always wondering what his deal is. Certainly the viewer realizes that this plot will come complete with double crosses and twists, and that makes it quite amusing, as well as the fact that Sabata never runs out of tricks that he can play on the enemy. In addition to the plethora of gunplay and the high body count, it's the craftiness of Sabata and Banjo that is the most entertaining element of the film. The supporting cast is solid: Franco Ressel as creepy villain Stengel, Antonio Gradoli as his associate Ferguson, very lovely Linda Veras as female lead Jane, Claudio Undari as Stengels' goon Oswald, Gianni Rizzo as Judge O'Hara, and ubiquitous Luciano Pigozzi as "Father Brown".The finale is quite enjoyable, with a nice bunch of twists and a good laugh at the end.Fans of this genre will likely dig this one.Eight out of 10.

Arlis Fuson Lee Van Cleef is Sabata, a fast shooting man in black with gun sight eyes and a Winchester that can out distance anyone. He meets up with some rather wild Mexicans and they blackmail some town officials who are crooks into giving them more and more money. The mayor and his boys wont give the money up and hire everyone they can to kill Sabata including his old friend Banjo, but no one can bring Sabata down.I love these kind of westerns. I can watch them all day. They seem perfect in almost every war. The only thing that kills the perfection is the stories do leave a little bit to be desired. During this era they were dishing out westerns as fast as they could make them, and although beautiful and brilliant with great direction, and good actors the stories often clashed and kept them from being 100 percent perfect.Frank Kramer's direction is some of the best I have ever seen. It is breathtaking. He co-wrote this trilogy with Renato Izzo and they work well together. Lee Van Cleef is one of my heroes and does so good in the title role. His fat Mexican compadre played by Pedro Sanchez was wonderful too. I really loved the acrobat Alley Cat played by Bruno Ukmar, and the judge played by Gianni Rizzo and of course Banjo (William Berger) all made for a great cast.The music was wonderful and set the pace, and speaking of pace, this movie didn't waste time with boring dialog or romance or anything it got right to the action which was great. I also loved how Sabata has bullets in the butt of his gun making for a surprise.I highly recommend this to any western fan...such a great film. 7/10 stars

The_Void Lee Van Cleef made his Spaghetti Western name under Sergio Leone in 1965 with a role in the masterpiece For a Few Dollars More, and a follow up as the villain in The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. However, he was only a co-star in those films; whereas Sabata gave him the chance to take the lead...and the result is rather disappointing. Not because of Van Cleef's performance, which is imposing and memorable as always - the problems with this film are more down to the lukewarm plot and rather boring execution. The story begins with a bank robbery in which $100,000 is stolen from an army safe; money that was to be used to buy the land for a planned railroad. However, the thieves haven't banked (ho ho) on a man in black named Sabata turning up and foiling the robbery. He gets the money back and returns to town; where he hooks up with his two sidekicks and proceeds to get in the way of other people in town, which results in plenty of gunfights...although a lot of the plot itself is messy and it's not easy to tell what's going on.The messy plot is of course the main problem with the film, and it really does kill the entertainment value of it. Director Gianfranco Parolini must have had an inkling of this as he packs his film with plenty of gunfights, which are kind of entertaining but not enough so to paper over the many cracks created by the messy plot line. The lead character is of course the main draw and Lee Van Cleef leads every scene he's in and successfully portrays the classic Spaghetti Western anti-hero. However, the same positive things can't be said of the supporting characters, which would at best be described as unwelcome distractions and don't fit the film hardly at all. The film runs for about one hundred minutes, and although many of the best westerns are much longer; this runtime also feels overlong and the overall experience of watching this film is generally not a fun one. Overall, Sabata might be of interest to die hard Spaghetti Western fans; but unfortunately it's not one of the best that the genre has to offer and I don't recommend it.

LosDiablo I watched this for the first time last night and really enjoyed it its the best western I've seen for a while I'm surprised it hasn,t got more of a following.it stars lee van cleef as sabata a gunslinger with a unique arsenal (how cool is that derringer) who rights wrongs done by criminal elements. along the way he meets up with a few unique characters a acrobatic mute Indian ally cat, a local bandit carrincha and an enigmatic banjo player who sabata has met before. Even the bad guys aren,t your typical western criminals. i was surprised how action packed it was. and how different some of the action was to usual gun play in westerns. this is easily lee van cleefs best work since the dollar films.A must for any lee van cleef fan