2 out of 5

Directed by: Sergio Corbucci

Conceptually noteworthy as a kind of grindhouse Yojimbo / Fistful of Dollars, the Franco Nero-starring Django is harder to view as a classic from a modern perspective, especially in its English dubbed version, which adds stilted voice acting and questionable translations into the mix.

It’s after the Civil War. Django (Nero) saves an escaping sex worker, Maria (Loredana Nusciak) from the Confederate soldiers who firstly “saved” her from Mexican revolutionaries, only to tie her up for a burning at the stake. This shorthand introduction to there being no good sides amongst the two works with the visual shorthand of the badass: Django is dressed all in black, has blue eyes and a brow-covering hat, and drags a coffin behind him – why not. An appealingly discordant score from Luis Balcov rages on, floating between familiar Morricone lifts and more playful tunes, with oddities like blasts of alarming strings and chill tom-toms sprinkled in.

Django proceeds with Maria to a nearby neutral town, and begins arranging the pieces for the Yojimbo double-play: pissing off Confederate Major Jackson (Eduardo Fajardo) – with whom he has history – and buddying up with rebel leader Hugo (José Bódalo), making a play for some Confederate gold. While the film’s at-the-time notorious violence is child’s play nowadays, there are still moments that can make you cringe, and definitely a Commando’s worth of gunfire and dropped bodies. Nero’s got the swagger down; Fajardo’s an amusing mustache-twirler; and Bódalo has that Tuco love ‘im / hate ‘im affability; the movie adds enough wrinkles onto the Yojimbo formula to establish a unique tone, which is enhanced by Corbucci’s muddy, overcast version of the West.

But these pieces never quite fit together into a seamless vehicle, the film instead feeling like it’s forced to chug along from storybeat to storybeat; more of a template than a logical narrative. Nero looks cool but it’s not a screen filling presence of Eastwood, and many of the cool concepts – the coffin, the Confederates’ creepy outfits, the final showdown – end up feeling both indulgent and rushed, filling up screentime with extra gunfire (or mudwrestling) for no special reason, but also not finding iconic shots within those moments.

This compared-to-Leone sloppiness has a version that works: the opening sequence of Nero dragging his coffin is mesmerizingly weird, like a Jodorowsky observational moment; most of the remaining film’s positives feel like happy (or happenstance) accidents – what “works” is fleeting.

That said, I know the English dub was really getting in my way of appreciating the flow of the movie – lines of dialogue just don’t quite connect with the emotions or actions of a scene – and, frankly, I’ve never been a big Western fan. Had I discovered this as a kid, trawling through VHSes from the genre, I have no doubt it would’ve stuck out – it’s a grizzly pic. As an adult without that nostalgia, though, it views as a relic.