Product: Boot Hill (1969)
Rating: 3.0
Misunderstood and unfairly mangled movie
Poor ol' BOOT HILL doesn't have the best reputation among fans of sphaghetti-westerns, but it's not entirely the movie's fault. While it sure has lots of flaws and is on-par with later efforts of the genre (or later efforts of Bud & Terence), fans of the genre could easily squeeze some joy out of this.Seems like most people judge this movie on it's alternate title TRINITY RIDES AGAIN. This doesn't make sense at all since it was made BEFORE anybody thought of the two later TRINITY movies and has close to zero similarities to them. What all three have in common is of course the presence of Bud Spencer and Terence Hill team up to help (more or less for the completely wrong reasons) the poor against the big bad opressors, in this case some evil gold-mining company. BOOT HILL is a very disjointed movie, it starts off as a serious and mean spirited italo-western and ends up in the usual TRINITY-style with the two legends beating up as many badguys as possible. The overall disjointedness is the pictures biggest fault, if you can look over it, you'll find some things to like here (if you are a fan of the genre):The scenery and photography is excellent and the movie has some real highlights of scenes just watch Terence's encountering with one of his followers in a big, stonhedge-like circle of stones. The chemistry between him and the not-quite-as-bully Spencer works for the picture, even if Bud doesn't show up until the movie is half over. The circus-element is quite likeable too, I really could relate to the revenge-motive one character carries throughout the movie. Until the end, BOOT HILL doesn't offer much of the usual Hill-Spencer-Humor which is possibly for the better, the movie is at it's strongest when things are played serious.So yes, this isn't one of the best movies (or even the best italo-westerns) ever made, but it sure has alot going for it. Forgive BOOT HILL becoming a complete suckfest in the last 15 minutes and see it as it is. This is not a "trinity" movie and was never intended to be, so keep that in mind!