Shoot 'em Up, Indeed!
Gary Peterson | San Diego, California USA | 06/24/2010
(5 out of 5 stars)
"Western movies. We used to call them "shoot 'em ups" because everyone was carrying a gun and a large number of people ended up getting shot in a creative variety of ways. I'd sort of forgotten about that but last night my wife and I watched "A Fistful of Dollars," a spaghetti western staring Clint Eastwood. It was a good movie but, man, I can't even begin to add up the casualties. There were handguns, rifles, shotguns and machine guns. Bad guys, good guys, soldiers and even a woman bit the dust. A small town casket maker was the leading beneficiary of all this mayhem, except that by the end of the movie there was almost no one left in town.
In any case, the movie concerned one of those memorable Eastwood loner characters who manages to pit two rival gangs of bad guys against one another until finally Eastwood, himself, gets trapped and beaten to a pulp and barely escapes death. Not a wise move! He recovers, of course, and comes back to finish off the remainder of the bad guys, which almost included the remainder of the town. It's a good story, very well done by director Sergio Leone, if you can stand the violence. Beautiful settings and photography. Nice music. Good acting. Interesting story. Highly entertaining. If all the guns, fights, assorted violence and death bothers you, well there's always "The Sound of Music."
Gary Peterson"
