morrison-dylan-fan Despite being well aware of his name in creating the original Django,I for some reason have never seen a title by Spaghetti Western auteur Sergio Corbucci. Taking part in a poll on ICM on the best films of 1968,I was excited to find two Corbucci's from '68,which led to me joining the mercenary.The plot:At a circus, mercenary Sergei "Polack" Kowalski recognises performer Paco Roman from their battles against the Mexican government. Unexpectedly meeting Roman afterwards,Kowalski learns that Roman and his gang of revolutionaries have done a deal to take silver safely across the border. Cutting a deal with Kowalski to help fight the army and get the silver across the line,Roman soon discovers that his new brother in arms is a gun for hire mercenary.View on the film:Saddling the audience in the middle of the Mexico Revolution,co- writer/(with Franco Solinas/ Giorgio Arlorio/ Luciano Vincenzoni/ Sergio Spina and Adriano Bolzoni) director Sergio Corbucci & cinematographer Alejandro Ulloa light the fuse for a red-hot Western atmosphere, which shoves the viewers face in the dry dirt of war with ultra-stylised whip-pans and invented,circling camera moves capturing the urgency of the Revolution. Backed by an enchanting score from Ennio Morricone and Bruno Nicolai, Corbucci closes works with editor Eugenio Alabiso for a lightning fast,action pace,as razor sharp edits and an earthy,sun-kiss appearance is cast on the revolution Kowalski and Roman are firing up.Replacing James Coburn after he quit over not getting the top billing, Franco Nero hits the audience with both barrels in his performance as Kowalski,thanks to Nero playing on the gun for hire ambiguity of Kowalski,which allows Nero to turn Kowalski from a devilish ladies man to a firebrand revolutionary with one shot. Personally chosen by Nero for the role, Tony Musante gives a superb performance as Roman,who is given a playful, mischievous side by Musante,which gets punched by Roman's fiery howls for revolution.Loaded up from a difficult writing phase which saw the original writers and directors quit,the new writers impressively keep all the troubles off screen, with the revolution "tour" that Roman, Kowalski and their fellow revolutionaries take around Mexican towns giving the tale an excellent episodic feel,as resentment grows with each town they visit. Crossing guns,the writers make the relationship between Kowalski and Roman wonderfully conflicted,as Roman's hopes of finding a brother in arms are shot by the mercenary gun for hire.

thesiouxfallskid Going into this film I did have expectations. After all it was directed by Sergio Corbucci (director of the original Django), music by Ennio Morricone (who hasn't heard of him?), and has an all-star cast with Franco Nero (original Django and a lot more), Jack Palance, Tony Musanti, and even Giovanna Ralli. So there is the amoral and self-serving Pollack Sergei (Franco), the immoral bad guy Curly (Palance), idealist revolutionary Paco (Musanti), and revolutionary idealist female Columba (Ralli). And look at all these raving reviews here. Hey, and even nudity. So what can go wrong? Well I did stick it out (sigh) but the story is really downright ridiculous where I was utterly bored stiff. So much so that I thought to write its first really negative review (as of this writing) to balance things out and warn those who have tired of ridiculous westerns. It is 102 minutes of your life, and there is a whole slew of westerns that I think are much more worthy of these 102 minutes. But on the other hand you might like a ridiculous story where the impossible keeps happening over and over and over. So it's just my take, it's just my opinion. Oh, and if you are looking forward to the nudity, no it's not the luscious Giovanna Ralli, it's a full-nude of **Jack Palance** (from the rear). And well a brief look at a Mexican hooker's (?) fanny.

ma-cortes This is a nice Zapata/Spaghetti Western set in Mexico during the confrontation Madero-general Huertas , including communist revolutionaries and mean bandits. Fate brought them together, greed made them inseparable, violence made partners. A Polish named Sergei Kowalski(Franco Nero) is a mercenary, he directs to do transporting silver to a mine , but he only finds a Mexican rebel (Tony Musante) has formed a Guerrilla and have taken control. Nevertheless, Sergei is contracted as hired hand and teaching the leader how to put his idealist fervor into practice. They are pursued by Curly (Jack Palance), a white-suited gay gunslinger.It's a thrilling western with overwhelming showdown between the protagonists Franco Nero and Tony Musante and the enemies Jack Palance and Eduardo Fajardo. Tony Musante, such as Tomas Milian, puts faces, grimaces, crying and overacting, but he plays splendidly. Agreeable intervention of a beauty as Giovanna Ralli. Furthermore, appears usual secondaries from Italian Western as Franco Ressell, Raf Baldassarre, Jose Canalejas, Alvaro De Luna, Simon Arriaga,Lorenzo Robledo, Tito Garcia, and of course Eduardo Fajardo, Corbucci's ordinary. The highlights of the film are the Tony Musante 's burying edge neck similarly to Franco Nero's ¨The Professional ¨, the confronting at the bullfighting square and the Polish wielding a machine gun and shooting though with anachronism because is a modern model. The picture mingles violence, thrills, shootém up, comedy with tongue in cheek and it's fast moving and for that reason is quite amusing. This film belongs to the numerous group that are set during the Mexican revolution, called ¨Zapata Western¨ , like are the Italians: ¨ Duck you sucker¨, ¨The professional¨ ,¨Tetepa¨ and the Americans : ¨The wild bunch¨, ¨Villa rides ¨, and ¨The professionals¨. There are many fine technicians and nice assistants as the cameraman Alejandro Ulloa who makes an excellent photography with barren outdoors, dirty landscapes under a glimmer sun shot on outskirts of Cuenca and of course Almeria, Spain ; however it is necessary an urgent remastering because of the copy is worn-out. The musician Ennio Morricone creates a classic Spaghetti soundtrack and well conducted by his habitual collaborator Bruno Nicolai. Well produced by Alberto Grimaldi -PEA productions- famous producer of ¨The trilogy of the dollars¨ filmed by Sergio Leone. Sergio Corbucci's direction is correct ,he made several classic Italian western : ¨ Django¨, ¨The great silence¨, ¨Hellbenders¨ , ¨The specialist¨ and the ¨Compañeros¨ , the latter bears special resemblance to ¨ The mercenary ¨ and along with ¨ ¨What am I doing in middle of the revolution¨ belongs a Corbucci's trilogy about Mexican revolution. Rating : 6,5/10. Good Spaghetti Western.

Phildo_The_Way_of_Phil This is probably one of the first spaghetti western's I ever saw, and whilst I made sure that I watched many, many more (the good, the bad and the naff) over my youth and early adulthood, what it did most was give me a great appreciation of Ennio Morricone, whose score made the film the masterpiece it is.The film has everything you want in it: solid protagonist, creepy bad guy, entertaining side kick and kicking action sequences, all rounded off with a score so good that has been reused in Kill Bill.Like many early spaghetti's its probably never going to be shown on the telly again, and DVD's probably don't exist, but if you can get hold of a copy its well worth the effort.