jam packed, good stuff

Rating: 8/10 (8 December 2007)

Seen on a double bill, I hardly expected to like this movie more than "A Fistful of Dollars", but damned if it ain't true. In spite of the rather silky Bush-era hairstyles, it's a ringer for a good A western of the classic era - no doubt because it lifts most of its script from one. Like all my favourite Westerns, it is anti-heroic; the good guys and bad guys shade into each other until there's some doubt about who is who, and it manages this without being corny. Themes aside, it's been a long time since I saw a movie that packed this much visual information into its first five minutes; the set pieces are all riveting; the performances live up to the production - it obliterated my Russell Crowe block. My minor complaint is that the fleeting outsider's nod to the Chinese railroad slaves should have been more detailed and defined; as it is it feels like guilty liberalism. My major complaint is about the ending; there's a couple ways to take it ideologically I guess, but the bottom line is that it just doesn't work. But it wasn't such a turnoff that I didn't spend a long time thinking about it, and overall this is way better work than I expect from Hollywood these days.