Clint Eastwood is now 90 and somehow he is still making and acting in films. Kind of amazing really as he started doing acting in the 50s and took a stab at directing films starting in the 70s, and he's still doing both today. He's worked on over 60 films with nearly all the big named Hollywood studios and has accumulated many awards for his work. He's worked with the likes of Tom Hanks, Leonardo DiCaprio, Morgan Freeman, Matt Damon, Angelina Jolie, Tommy Lee Jones and even Stephen Spielberg just to name a few. He's also perhaps one of a few actors to achieve great success in actual film making aside from acting. Not many people out there that are like Clint Eastwood. He is that one guy who did the unthinkable and pulled through. Today we are looking at the three films that gave him international recognition. They are iconic films that helped shape the western genre and are often used as the sole inspiration for western films and other media that followed it such as the film
Rango (which itself featured one of Eastwood's characters embodying a spirit of sorts) and the Red Dead video game series. Though these films are known as Spaghetti Westerns (which this series introduced as a genre funnily enough) as they were made by Italian filmmakers. So let's grab some guns, hats, horses and whatever else as we take a trip to the good old wild west with Clint Eastwood:
A Fistful of Dollars
Something that may be a bit distracting for some when they see these films now is that they look dubbed and unlike anime where it's literally unnoticeable due to how mouths are opened and closed in that medium, its very noticeable in live action films and can be distracting. But you know some people are fine with that. Anyway so we begin by seeing an unnamed stranger (played by Eastwood) arriving in a little town near the Mexico-United States border. The unnamed man is told of a couple of smuggler families trying to take control over the town. On one side, it's a group of bandit brothers and on the other side, the town sheriff (played by the late Wolfgang Lukschy) and his family. The stranger decides to play around with both families as he demonstrates his skills. Before long, he winds up in the middle of their struggle for control and must find a way out. In addition to this being the first film with Eastwood in a starring role, it's also the first for its director Sergio Leone who shows off his directing skills and style in this film. As I have seen western things before, this one is pretty good. Its about as expected from a western and its done reasonably well. Quite influential for its time, but it wouldn't be the last we see of the Man with No Name. 8/10
For a Few Dollars More
In the second film, the unnamed stranger has been known to people by a new name; Manco. He has become a bounty hunter and finds common ground with a former army officer called Colonel Douglas Mortimer (played by the late Lee Van Cleef). The two of them team up to claim a bounty for a cold-blooded bank robber known as El Indio (played by the late Gian Maria Volonte) though both remain at odds with how much bounty each one is claiming. Nevertheless, they set out to claim it which leads to gun fights, scuffles and all sorts all for the sake of claiming a bounty and to keep the peace. A film with a pretty straight forward plot that is easy to follow. This sort of trope is known to put people off when they know how it's going to play out. But for me, I saw it through to the end just like any film I review, and I thought it was OK. It has a lot of known clichés throughout, but you can't deny the combination of talent that is used for this film. Another classic of course, but could've had more work done if I'm being honest. 7/10
The Good, The Bad and The Ugly
So before we go into the last and arguably the best one of the three, an interesting fact about the films is that they were all released not long after another. This is quite a rare feat for lots of film franchises where it needs no more than a year or two to have the next instalment. I guess maybe they were all done and just needed a distributor (which was MGM's United Artists) to help release them. So in the third and final film of this trilogy, the American Civil War is taking place and bounty hunter Angel Eyes (played by Lee Van Cleef, a different role to the last film) is out to finish up a job before joining the war. Meanwhile, a Mexican bandit called Tuco (played by the late Eli Wallach) finds trouble with a man formerly known as Manco who is now called Blondie, but reluctantly teams up with him when he learns of some money being buried in a grave at Sad Hill Cemetery. They travel together to find this money while dealing with a few obstacles along the way. If there wasn't a film poster featuring the titular characters, much of the film would've had people guessing who is the good, who is the bad and who is the ugly. Also, there are different versions of this film that exist, but I saw the restored version which is the longest one and the best one of the many versions that are out there. It's a film that blew me away with its comedy, action packed moments and even the stand-off at the end which was perhaps the most iconic and epic scene in the whole film. Also, it's quite interesting that the one that people see as the comic relief is the one that gets the most character development in the film (though Eastwood's character as iconic as it is, had three films with plenty of development). The best one of the three and also one of the greatest western films I have ever seen. Really hard to criticize it as it is really good. 9/10
Whether you feel lucky or not, these are great western films. Not perfect, but a lot of fun with humour, action, catchy one liners and great acting. 9/10
No comments:
Post a Comment