★ 9 / 10
If you don't kill me right now, it'll
John Chard
If you don't kill me right now, it'll be the last mistake you make. La resa dei conti (The Big Gundown) is directed by Sergio Sollima and written by Sollima…
If you don't kill me right now, it'll be the last mistake you make.
La resa dei conti (The Big Gundown) is directed by Sergio Sollima and written by Sollima and Sergio Donati. It stars Lee Van Cleef, Tomas Milian, Walter Barnes and Gerard Herter. Music is by Ennio Morricone and cinematography by Carlo Calini.
Superior Spaghetti Western with shades of Zapata for good measure, The Big Gundown finds Van Cleef as bounty hunter - cum - unofficial lawman Jonathan Corbett, whose reputation for bringing in the criminals, dead or alive, has caught the attention of business baron Brockston (Barnes). With an interest in getting into politics, Corbett is sold on Brockston’s offer of political help if he will do a job for him. The job is to hunt down a Mexican rogue by the name of Cuchillo (Milian) who is alleged to have raped and murdered a 12 year old girl. Tracking Cuchillo across the land, the Mexican proves to be a slippery customer, and more importantly, Corbett begins to doubt the veracity of the charges against him.
Adios Amigo.
What do you need for a great Italo Western? A leading man with screen presence supreme? Check! Rogue antagonist able to overact opposite the leading man whilst still exuding charm personified? Check! Scorching vistas? Check! A musical score so in tune with the story it’s a character all by itself? Check! And violence? Check! Sollima’s movie has it all.
Much of the film is about the manhunt and how the two men involved develop a relationship. Cuchillo claims he’s being set up and seems to have friends in every town featured in the play. Corbett is a dandy with a gun, but he’s not perfect, he can be outsmarted and get caught cold. There’s good thought gone into the screenplay in this respect, not putting the anti-hero up as an infallible superman.
Then there’s the side-bar narrative strands that show Sollima’s political bent, even though this is hardly a heavily politico piece. From class struggles and racism, to asides on the justice system and the fat cats who operate around the system, Sollima does enjoy dangling such carrots. With zippy set pieces fuelled by brooding machismo that is in turn enhanced by the top work from Carlini and Morricone (it's one of Moricone's best scores, real dynamite), this is grade “A” Spaghetti and well worth feasting on. 9/10
★ 8 / 10
One of the best Spaghetti I've ever seen!!!
elo-equipamentos
Here we have two legendary actors together, the stereotyped Lee Van Cleef & Tomas Millian, the first a true American from New Jersey that went to stardom after…
Here we have two legendary actors together, the stereotyped Lee Van Cleef & Tomas Millian, the first a true American from New Jersey that went to stardom after working with the master Sergio Leone, Tomas Millian a Cuban that made an impressive career at Italy and Spain on spaghetti genre although both had a fine experience on Italian Poliziotteschi on the seventies.As strange as it may seems Lee Van Cleef plays a good guy Jonathan Colorado Corbett, a bounty hunter that swept the western territory of those outlaws, bank robbers and related, such striking performance impresses the greedy and wealthy financier Brokston (Walter Barnes) that is willing underwrite Corbett to run of the senate's seat, however appears an unexpected sad news, a twelve years old girl was raped and murdered by a Mexican outlaw called Cuchillo (Tomas Millian), they require to Corbett bring him alive to be punished rather than he cross the Mexico frontier.The savvy Corbett finds him sooner than he had ever hope, Cuchillo was calmly shaving at a small village, nonetheless the slippery cat burglar escapes with rare smartness, the next stop is a Mormon's wagon train passing by the river area, Corbett finds him about to rape another young girl, once more Cuchillo has a lucky at his side, the young girl shot at Corbett's shoulder, next meeting at widow farmer where the dirtiest runaway at last was arrested, meantime all it took was a small slip up for the cunning outlaw slips away, a new rallying point takes place in a desert waterhole, where the crafty bandolero sticks a cactus's thorn at Corbett's back pretending a snake's bite that is near him, what scene, anyway Cuchillo still gets running over and over until weary confess that he wasn't rape the girl whatsoever, although he knows who did.Isn't all that Tarantino regards this movie one the best spaghetti ever, the both leading actors had a flawless performance, the final showdown is priceless , the director Sergio Sollima lived up at Leone's style, I'll look forward for a better restoration preserving the fabulous Aspect Ratio 2.35 : 1, due my copy was of the first generation of DVD!!Thanks for reading.Resume:First watch: 1993 / How many: 2 / Source: TV-DVD / Rating: 8
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This appears to be the "extended" version.