4 out of 5

Director: Sergio Leone

Its quiet, not too action filled, and downright silly at one moment, but any Western fan is going to get this movie, and anyone looking to get into Westerns can start here and feel good. But if youre a modern movie fan, the slow film might make you yawn. Yes – inspired by Kurosawas Yojimbo – Fistful is an entirely different film, taking a basic structure and spinning it into something fresh (as was the case with Last Man Standing, which I still like the best out of the three…). Putting this into context, though the fights are contact- and bloodless (make a dying face and fall down and we know yer dead), Eastwood smartly eschewed much of the dialogue from the script to make this a new type of lead actor: not a golden boy, but a rogue with no name, no past, and no associations, whos doing this all for some money. Stranger arrives in a town with two warring bosses, and realizes that by skipping allegiances between the two, he can earn some money. What makes this better than Yojimbo (to me) is the tone. Yojimbos Mifune was too comical, too talky, and too clumsy, which made the dramatic bits seem silly. Eastwood balances that by shutting up, allowing for some comedy but playing it cool. So when he takes a beating later on (when his ruse is discovered), it matches the gross undercurrent of the film, amazingly captured, I must admit, by Leones trained eye and use of color, and location, and Morricones great music. As mentioned, there was a bit in the middle that was smart in conception but seemed really implausible when it played out (Eastwoods corpse ruse), but besides that – this was a surprisingly enjoyable film, and absolutely served as the template for the down and dirty hero who would pop up in, say, Die Hard, years later.