Woovember 2019: Bonus film #7

"What's this thing?"
"It's a gear shift."
"What's it for?"
"For shifting gears."

A great western, a great action film, a great buddy movie and a great political thriller. And as a bonus you get Kinski as a crazy warrior monk.

"Don't buy bread - buy dynamite!"

A capital P Political spaghetti bloodbath, with revolution on its mind and hundreds of corpses in its wake. Balances grand, intricately choreographed and expertly staged skirmishes with personal character drama as the revolution evolves and loyalties are tested. Come for the bloody shootouts, stay for Gian Maria Volonté's riveting lead performance.

A surprisingly good entry in the long line of Spaghetti westerns, only marred by poor dubbing and not enough for wild-eyed Klaus Kinski to do. The leads, instead, are sympathetic outlaw Gian Maria Volonté (who vaguely resembles Franco Nero), and quiet American Lou Castel - both are excellent.

Well-written and quick moving, this western is unusual enough to keep the attention, and is not as blood-drenched as others in its genre. The guitar-led music is potent enough, and this is a beautifully shot film which picks up on strong reds, sharp greys, and deep blues.

Overflowing with mass murder, misanthropy, and the angst of the disenfranchised. The darker shades of Che Guevara's Cuban revolution are very potent here. But amidst the counterculture and anticapitalist sentiment is the lust for the American dream. America is represented here by Niño (Lou Castel), our squeaky clean white kid, and gang leader El Chuncho (Gian Maria Volontè) takes a shine to him. Niño perverts and manipulates every scenario. Chuncho loves him, trusts him, and kills for him even though he is so plainly the grand deceiver. The lust for America results in shame. A Bullet for the General might be the most politically loaded spaghetti western I've seen, and its themes are neatly woven into some burly action spectacle. It is entertaining as hell.

Scavenger Hunt 57
24/31

What a fantastic western. The characters, the setpieces, the themes, they’re all there. I fell in love with all the morally grey characters and their dynamics amongst each other. At it’s core it’s a fairly simple and familiar message about greed and self interest but it’s executed so flawlessly amongst everything else it has to offer. Friendship, freedom, revolution, betrayal, love and hate - every idea is twisting and curving throughout each new interaction. It’s like the suns light fractured through the smoke of a train or the sweat reflecting off the foreheads of men and women who just want their work and experiece to mean something. Principles wash away with every drop of blood.

Se é do Damiani não é necessário dizer que é político, não? Se o Faccia a Faccia do Sollima estava para Dostoiévski, este do Damiani está para Shakespeare na mesma proporção. Embora lotado de personagens emblemáticas, a personagem de Klaus Kinski é a mais interessante, não só porque o homem nasceu para fazer cara de fanático religioso, mas porque a sua posição dentro da narrativa é a mais complexa. É lógico que o Kinski é o irmão do Volontè, não está na cara?

Töte Amigo ist ein Film bei dem fast alles passt. Action, Schauspieler und die Handlung auf hohem Niveau, langeweile gibts nicht und eine politische Kritik wird auf emotionale und glaubhafte Art vermittelt. Somit darf man den Film zweifelsohne zu den guten Politik/Spaghettiwestern aller Zeiten zählen!

I go into spaghetti westerns pretty blindly, so I expect neither greatness nor misery. I grabbed this blu-ray for like 5 bucks because I am down for my spaghetti goodness. Little did I know that I had purchased one of my new favorites in the genre..

The bandit leader and the blonde guy who looks like he stumbled out of a 30's gangster flick are both great leads. The bandit is full of energy and a strong desire to both make pesos and help out his country. Mr. Blondy is intriguing in his suit, looking a bit stiff, but wanting to join a group of revolutionaries. There are some great twists and tons of shoot outs along the way. I love Klaus Kinski, and he did bring a little crazy as a priest throwing explosives and helping the revolution, but he seemed a little wasted here.

Typical Fun Spaghetti Western. Bad Dubbing, not enough Klaus Kinski.

Capitalism is Overrated.

What starts as a laughably low budget Spaghetti Western with senseless, stake-less violence evolves into a morally complex action adventure story about loyalty, greed, revolution and and American intervention abroad. Some of the directing and editing sometimes felt cheap but this is far more than the precursor/discount Duck, You Sucker with it's own dynamite ending. I loved it.

Si hay algun western spaghetti a la altura de los de Leone es este, incluso mejor que sus primeros. Volonté demuestra que es un distinto. Una película con los excesos necesarios del género, sumado a un contexto histórico verosímil y a escenas memorables que pueden ser parte también del panteón del mejor cine político de la época.

I've only ever seen Leone and Corbucci's Spaghetti Western, nor have i ever seen a Damiani movie so this was a pleasant surprise for me.
As usual with Italo Western there really are no good guys here.

Gian Maria Volonte absolutely owns this role.He always delivers in every Film i watched him in.
Klaus Kinski, intense as always, plays a man with a twisted view of his christian faith.

Unfortunately, Lou Castel gets kinda buried between these 2 big personalities.

Töte Amigo ist ein Film bei dem fast alles passt. Action, Schauspieler und die Handlung auf hohem Niveau, langeweile gibts nicht und eine politische Kritik wird auf emotionale und glaubhafte Art vermittelt. Somit darf man den Film zweifelsohne zu den guten Politik/Spaghettiwestern aller Zeiten zählen!

A very very trigger happy Zapata Western, Gian Maria Volanté provides a spirited, immensely fascinating performance as a Mexican bandits who comes to learn of the importance of the Revolution.
It has familiar scenes and plot points and the audio / dubbing is off, but the second half of this film really flies once it starts infusing some left wing, compassionate politics into the story. Klaus Kinski’s character is severely underused (or cut?) but Volanté’s Chuncho soon makes the case for the Mexicans being his ‘people’ who mean something (non-Mexicans don’t mean much though) and his appointment of the only literate person in the town of San Miguel as the leader (ironically, the town of San Miguel leads to a ‘bitter’ dispute among the bandits ;) ). 
And it has a great ending and closing shot. In other words: tolerable Marxism.

7/10

Kár, h. az akciójelenetek nem túl ütősek és Damiani stílusa visszafogott. Okos film jó színészekkel és rendezéssel (10/8 - od)

This doesn’t feel like a typical spaghetti western, it feels like a western epic. A Bullet For the General is slow-paced and it takes its time developing characters. The battle scenes help break up the slow pacing, and the way they’re shot makes them feel larger than life.

Really my only complaint is that certain plot points could’ve been more fleshed out. Ironically, the title doesn’t have much to do with the movie because the ‘bullet’ isn’t introduced until the third act of the film.