← Back to Reviews
in
#267 - For a Few Dollars More
Sergio Leone, 1965
A pair of rival bounty hunters - one a nameless cowboy, the other a former Army colonel - join forces to take on a gang of murderous thieves.
Sergio Leone films don't exactly lend themselves to repeated viewings, though in their case that's not necessarily a bad thing. This marks the first time I've watched For a Few Dollars More in at least a decade and the second time overall, but on the basis of that original viewing I put the film into my original Top 100. It didn't make the cut the second time around, but I still liked it reasonably well. I watched it again for the 1960s countdown and, though time will tell if it goes on my ballot, it is still a very good film.
A large part of what makes this film work so well has to do with the fact that Clint Eastwood's iconic Man with No Name (here named "Monco" as a result of the hand injury he sustained during the course of A Fistful of Dollars) now has a good foil in the form of Colonel Mortimer (Lee Van Cleef). Though Mortimer's slick black suit is a far cry from the colourful poncho ensemble that Monco wears, the men themselves are still very much cut from the same hard-bitten cloth. The interplay between Eastwood and Van Cleef is fantastic - they are rivals and have enough personality differences to generate some friction but their grudging respect for one another is another great trait. They team up to go after Indio (Gian Maria Volonté), an especially vicious and crazed bandit whose behaviour suggests he feels some serious guilt over some unspecified event in his past (but not enough to stop going on crime sprees, of course). The film fills out its two-hour running time with some standard Leone trademarks - prolonged stand-offs, drawn-out action sequences, appropriately gritty yet aesthetically pleasing cinematography, casually dangerous yet lyrical dialogue and, of course, a classic score by Ennio Morricone. Essential viewing for anyone who's interested in Westerns.
Sergio Leone, 1965
A pair of rival bounty hunters - one a nameless cowboy, the other a former Army colonel - join forces to take on a gang of murderous thieves.
Sergio Leone films don't exactly lend themselves to repeated viewings, though in their case that's not necessarily a bad thing. This marks the first time I've watched For a Few Dollars More in at least a decade and the second time overall, but on the basis of that original viewing I put the film into my original Top 100. It didn't make the cut the second time around, but I still liked it reasonably well. I watched it again for the 1960s countdown and, though time will tell if it goes on my ballot, it is still a very good film.
A large part of what makes this film work so well has to do with the fact that Clint Eastwood's iconic Man with No Name (here named "Monco" as a result of the hand injury he sustained during the course of A Fistful of Dollars) now has a good foil in the form of Colonel Mortimer (Lee Van Cleef). Though Mortimer's slick black suit is a far cry from the colourful poncho ensemble that Monco wears, the men themselves are still very much cut from the same hard-bitten cloth. The interplay between Eastwood and Van Cleef is fantastic - they are rivals and have enough personality differences to generate some friction but their grudging respect for one another is another great trait. They team up to go after Indio (Gian Maria Volonté), an especially vicious and crazed bandit whose behaviour suggests he feels some serious guilt over some unspecified event in his past (but not enough to stop going on crime sprees, of course). The film fills out its two-hour running time with some standard Leone trademarks - prolonged stand-offs, drawn-out action sequences, appropriately gritty yet aesthetically pleasing cinematography, casually dangerous yet lyrical dialogue and, of course, a classic score by Ennio Morricone. Essential viewing for anyone who's interested in Westerns.