Sergio Leone's Ambitious Personal Statement towards Contemporary Politics

Rating: 6/10 (14 September 2005)

Sergio Leone's "odd film out" is at its core his answer to a wave of leftist Zapata westerns that had been making their way to the screen from 1968, with movies such as The Mercenary, Bullet for the General and Companeros. The message in these movies is clear: The working class should unite against the tyranny of the bourgeois upper class and all will be well, even if you die fighting for the cause. Sergio Leone obviously didn't agree.
Duck You Sucker utilizes the tropes from these movies: The rich upper class being dismissive and oppressive to the poor everyman, the European soldier of fortune, the salt-of-the-earth Mexican bandit, the fighting spirit... a little about the fighting spirit though: The film's first half has a mischievous sort of tongue-in-cheek atmosphere and moments of physical comedy reminiscent of the aforementioned films of the same genre. The action sequences are presented as fun and exciting, but in between those scenes, with increasing frequency the peasant gives us an insight into his (and Leone's) view of the revolution. The peasant is in general an anarchist opportunist who places more value on kinship and survival than on political reforms and class distinction.
The attack of the bridge in which an enemy battalion is massacred marks the point at which most of the other Zapata westerns would have ended: At the moment of glorious triumph! We've won the bad guys, we will thrive! But what's important is the aftermath: The richer, more powerful upper class government strikes back, with a vengeance. Blood begets blood and for all involved the revolution is a disaster. The final hour is as gruelling as the first hour is light-hearted. It begs several questions: Is the end worth the means? Is violence the only way? Is it possible to form a fair government at all? I've talked a lot about the film's themes and message. But I haven't really touched upon the actual quality of the film itself and how it gets its message across. The fact is, Duck You Sucker is ultimately slightly less than a sum of its parts. The film's set pieces are extremely impressive and photography and music are enjoyably eccentric. The pairing of Rod Steiger and James Coburn is odd but only adds to the bizarre feel of the whole thing.
Its problems are numerous, however. Steiger's accent is borderline hilariously inaccurate for a Mexican, I honestly don't know where it came from but I'll be damned if it wasn't the inspiration for Al Pacino's Tony Montana! Coburn's Irish accent wanders in and out during the entire movie, seems like he's really struggling with it. The continuity is at points extremely muddled, providing for an unnecessarily confusing narrative. At one point an entire scene is apparently dropped and the frame flip-flops into another scene! This edit was not the result of censorship to my knowledge. I can only assume that the negatives for the scene were lost before editing began or the crew simply forgot to shoot it! Leone's films tend to be slightly loose in their narrative, and many events happen off-screen. In Once Upon a Time in the West & America it works, here it occasionally becomes a nuisance.
The switch from comedy to drama half-way through is abrupt to say the least. I suspect that was the idea, but add that on top of the confusing narrative and it almost feels as if we've entered a different movie. I'll have to give it credit for this, though; very few film-makers dare to even attempt this! The comedy sometimes goes a little over the edge, although nowhere as blatantly as the title itself! Duck You Sucker is an extremely unfit and clumsy title for the film, and its alternatives Once Upon a Time... The Revolution and A Fistful of Dynamite don't quite cut it for me. The gist of the Italian title is basically "keep out of trouble".
Duck You Sucker is, if anything, a genuinely interesting film. Even its flaws are interesting. Don't hesitate to give it a spin, but temper your expectations. Once Upon a Time in the West it is not.