Il mio West
Tags: western

Plot synopsis:
The story begins in 1860 in Basin Field, a small (fictional) village on the slopes of the great mountains that border Canada in the "Far West." The film depicts the idealistic lifestyle of an old West farmer, his Indian wife and half-breed son, who narrates the tale. The main character is "Doc" (Pieraccioni), the village doctor, his Indian wife Pearl (Holt) and their son Jeremiah.
Their idyllic life is disrupted when Doc's father Johnny Lowen (Keitel), an old gunslinger, suddenly shows up on the farm. Johnny says he has returned home to find rest and to finally retire. The family is not happy with his return, given his past lifestyle and mistreatment of his family.
After his arrival in the village, Jack Sikora (Bowie), a killer who has been chasing Johnny for years, and his two henchmen hears he has returned. Jack is determined to kill Johnny, and does everything in his power to force his rival to accept a duel to the death. Mary, the Saloon madam tries to kill Sikora, but is killed in the process. Given Jonny's reluctance to accept a duel, Jack kidnaps Doc's son Jeremiah. Johnny accepts the duel in order to save Jeremiah, but ultimately the village idiot manages to kill Jack by an accidental fire.

Review: Good subtle humor and still real..
If you would enjoy seeing some of the formula characters and scenes in a western presented in new ways, you might like this.
Some of these formulas are treated with quietly humorous disrespect, be warned, if you take westerns seriously.
Think of a good "Gunsmoke" episode made as a movie for the level of plot depth.
Scenes weren't always smoothly connected, some had a "plot requirement" feel but I do wonder what ended up on the cutting room floor.
People wore dirty clothes, gunshots produced blood, town citizens were parochial and short-sighted, the basics I need to stay involved.
Bowie is appropriately evil, and does sensible evil things to achieve his goals!.
NICE MOVIE, FUNNY COMEDY.
It isn't a Pieraccioni's movie.
Yes, he play in that movie and he write something about that movie but he is not the director, and so it is different from the other Pieraccioni's movies, but it is funny , not like the other, but it has got a nice story too.
one among the worst Italian movies ever..
Leonardo Pieraccioni is a nice, handsome man who made some successful comedy (romantic)movies in Italy, targeting the 20-30 years middle class womans.
No gross matters, no sex , no curse language , I would to say no humor and no fun but it is just my opinion.This time he make an attemp with a spaghetti comedy western and failed miserably.
The plot is absurd and amateurish, the actors (pretty goods) were wasted in a crappy plot with just some glimpses .
Do you want to enjoy yourself a Italian comedy?
Do you want to see a spaghetti western?
Schmaltzy Stuff, Kietel And Bowie Make It Fun Though..
Aging gunfighter Harvey Kietel returns to his family after twenty years, to find his wife dead and his only son a pacifist doctor.
He's soon followed by degenerate hick David Bowie, who wants his chance to best Kietel and won't take "No" for an answer.The first half of this tender-hearted, politically correct Italian western (the first in awhile) is pretty syrupy, but alright as long as you're not expecting a rip-roaring spaghetti western.
Harvey Kietel is as excellent as always and the location photography pretty good.Things get weird in the second half, when a scenery-chewing Bowie and his motley crew arrive to begin a vigil outside Kietel's house.
Here he's quite amusing, talking with the same fake southern accent he used for his cameo appearance in Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me and even getting a chance to strum his guitar and sing, that is until he bashes it over the head of another character.I couldn't help but like it..
Several of the comments here show negative response to what I feel is really a kind of tribute film to the great Sergio Leone.
This film could easily have been Parmesan cheese atop the fabulous westerns Leone and Clint Eastwood created, but I think it keeps a good blend with the genre.
Yes, the main character, Doc, is speaking in Italian and English is dubbed in.
But that's a big part of the charm of all "foreign" films, especially the spaghetti westerns.
And having spent my childhood in Oklahoma, I thought Bowie's psychotic bad man accent was surprisingly good (although I think Dwight Yoakam would have made a better casting choice).
I thought the choice of the Marley's reggaeesque tune was more than suitable, especially since one of the "bad guy" characters was Rastafarian - one of many colorful additions that, in my view, bring nice flavors to the genre.My only complaint after seeing the film once is that it's too short.
If it were expanded to include more about Keitel's character and his earlier relationship with Bowie's, the climactic scene could have carried more punch - maybe not along the lines of the Bronson/Fonda gunfight in Once Upon a Time in the West, but richer character development would definitely have added more suspense and contributed to bringing a well-worn genre into the 21st century.I don't think anyone who is a true fan of spaghetti westerns would be disappointed in spending 95 minutes with a tastefully created, colorful, quirky film like this..
One wonders if this film was actually directed by a single human being with a creative thought process.
It feels as if the screenplay was generated by some sort of computer after being fed with the essential plot points of the Hollywood western.
The film lurches along awkwardly, trying not to miss any of the preprogrammed beats.
It's rather a grubby combination of far far better films such as "Shane", "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance", "The Shootist", "High Noon" or even that evergreen, "The Angel and the Badman".
"The Gunslinger's Revenge" even throws in some "Dances With Wolves" moments among the local population of amazingly genial and chipper Native Americans.
One would hope this can be attributed to the script which relies on every Western gunfighter cliché ever produced and handcuffs the actors to characters without any range or depth.And speaking of Lee Marvin's brilliant performance as the vile, mentally unhinged Liberty Valance...What cinematic genius suggested that David Bowie try the ghastly pseudo-Southern dialect as the mentally unbalanced gunfighter who tracks Keitel to his hometown?
It sorted through the data and decided in lieu of being able to dress Bowie as former Nazi officer (always a quick way to establish a character as a freelance sadist), they would opt for a Confederate officer instead.
Of course, it all makes perfect sense -- just like the rest of this appalling film..
Shot in the Apennines mountains in central Italy, by Italian Box Office breaker Piraccioni and his friend Veronesi, this 'comedy'- of- sorts makes us crave for the days of REAL spaghetti-westerns...
Apparently Bowie wanted to 'have fun' and "work with Harvey Keitel, an actor I very much admire...".
This is no "Once upon a time in the West" by 'maestro' Sergio Leone.
Such good taste as a musician (Bowie) doesn't guarantee the same when it comes to choosing a script.
p.s. Mr Keitel, on the other hand, has a shoddy 'track record' too, with the exception of a handful of 'stand out' films and roles...
"You got a nice little town here...
GREAT PLACE TO DIE!" Spoken with what could be the worst British/Southern/Western accent ever recorded, psychopath gunfighter Jack Sikora (Bowie) tries to draw out retired gunfighter Johnny Lowen (Keitel).
This is not a comedy, though I understand why someone would try to pass it off as one- it IS funny to see Bowie try to act 'old west'.
That didn't happen here, though I suspect audience response (in the US, anyway) caused those responsible for the movie to re-think their strategy and throw the comedy label on it.
Making sound bites from Bowie's western phrases has been a hoot (or as he might say, 'a hut').
"This ain't a bad dream, Johnny, it's really me", says Jack/Bowie.
Beginning with his first line of dialogue, one hopes that the main character (Leonardo Pieraccioni) will get shot.
Keitel can't do anything with the script (and you can't blame him for not really trying).
I don't understand the complaints about Bowie ...
But it's the dialogue, story, and main actor that kill the film.
The main characted give his lines in English, but has clearly been dubbed by a native speaker (unfortunately, not an actor).
Attempts to reclassify it as a some sort of intentionally pastiche cult comedy are wishful thinking.
Not that the film doesn't inspire a degree of laughter ....
Only because of Bowie.
This spaghetti-western is worth watching only because of one thing.
O.K., maybe two: the stars of the project are Harvey Keitel and David Bowie.
During the first half of the movie we're dealing with some strange combination of a cowboy story, comedy (not very bright, I must say) and...
family movie.
Something interesting starts to happen when Bowie gets on the stage, but for his appearance we have to wait for a fifty minutes (fifty three, to be more specific).
In case you don't admire the gentleman, you should forget about "Il mio west" - it's the kind of a flick that makes you think: why the hell someone decided to film this?.
Anybody knowing the previous movies with Pieraccioni will be very mad.
It's not a western, it's not a romance, it's not a comedy.
Absolutely the worst movie in many years!!.
I was so surprised how this movie had bad writing, a worse storyline while employing a cast like Harvey Keitel and David Bowie.
Not to mention the fact that, while dubbing a movie ruins a film altogether, they've dubbed the doctor's lines in English.
We were wondering why that actor was so bad.The dubbing ruined part of the intensity the actor might have brought, but it could have never made up for the multitude of flaws and the bad ending this movie had.
Is it any wonder the voting for this movie is going lower and lower?I had "Unforgiven" in the DVD player, ready to go, but put it off until the end, just to see how the movie turned out...
Two bad guys, one lousy good guy and one irritating kid..
Lousy excuse for a western.
The protagonist is hard to like at all, and his Grandfather, Harvey Keitel as Johhny Lowden, is misused and colorless.
The worst part of the whole script is how a tribe of Native Americans sit at their village and wait for the village news carrier come and tell everyone of the arrival of Johnny Lowden and then David Bowie's character (one of the worst characters I've ever seen).
The village never does anything but be a sounding board and then parties after the bad guy is dead, and one must wonder why the hell do they care?
The town loon is a poorly developed character who looses a chance to be of much value except at the end.
Even Harvey Keitel finds it hard to fake laughter at the conclusion.The western genre is not dead, but this poor excuse for a story should have been a "pass" and never green-lighted..
I think that Pieraccioni made one very good film that is "Il ciclone", then he used the fame he got with this movie to sell other ones.
I think he should stop, and then appear again only with a movie at the same level as "il ciclone" was; otherwise he is going to ruin the good image he has now..
Not only does "Gunslinger's Revenge" qualify as a pre-Sergio Leone style western from the 1960s when European filmmakers imitated American westerns before Leone reinvented the genre, but it also emerges as a post-Sergio Leone, neo-spaghetti western in an age when only a handful of horse operas are produced.
Clearly, the filmmakers didn't want their movie to resemble a traditional spaghetti western and it doesn't look like a typical European oater.
Although "Gunslinger's Revenge" was lensed in Italy, the lush, green surroundings where it was photographed look more in keeping with an American western.
"Suddenly Paradise" director Giovanni Versonesi and actor/scenarist Leonardo Piersaccioni freely adapted Vincenzo Pardini's novel Jodo Cartamigli for "Gunslinger's Revenge." Since I haven't read the novel, I have no way of verifying whether Versonesi or Piersaccioni remained faithful to the source material.
Okay, you can tell that they dubbed some of the actors, simply because their dialogue is far too loud and far too clear.
On the whole, despite the oddball casting, Versonesi has fashioned an interesting, above-average western with a surprise ending.
"Gunslinger's Revenge" is all about the theme of family.
Its' live-by-the-gun or die-by-the-gun theme is the standard stuff of 1950s American westerns."Gunslinger's Revenge" opens with the words: "The West is where every child played cowboys and Indians." Indeed, "Gunslinger's Revenge" is a western more in the tradition of "Shane." Like the novel "Shane," "Gunslinger's Revenge" is told from the perspective of a young, cheerful, half-breed, elementary school age boy named Jeremiah (Yudii Mercredi) who would rather play hooky from school than suffer indoors at the mercy of a stern schoolmarm.
Notorious gunslinger John Lowen (Harvey Keitel of "Pulp Fiction") returns to his home town of Basin Fields after a lifetime of wandering to hang up his six-shooter.
He wants to renew his family ties with his son, Doc Lowen (Leonardo Piersaccioni of "The Prince and the Pirate"), who has never carried a gun but has acquired a reputation for settling fights between the townspeople.
John Lowen discovers that his son has married an Indian squaw and his success at doctoring the locals has allowed his wife and him to live a normal life without prejudice.
Initially, Doc isn't overjoyed to see his long lost papa; he doesn't like it that John abandoned his mother and him in his youth to wander in search of adventure.
Nevertheless, Doc and his wife Pearl (Sandrine Holt of "Starship Troopers 2") allow him to stay with them in the same house that he grew up in as a youth.
John Lowen has such a reputation that a detachment of cavalry shows up in town to observe his behavior.
John convinces the captain that he has come back home, never to leave again.A psychopathic gunslinger, Jack Sikora and his multi-culturally diverse gang of pistoleros show up in Basin Fields after the cavalry leave.
Sikora has come to kill John.
The unusual casting of British rock star David Bowie as Sikora is hard to swallow at first, but Bowie is appropriately homicidal as Sikora and he is prepared to kill anybodyman or womanwithout a qualm that poses a threat to him.
Sikora's gang consists of a white guy, a black guy, and a woman in leather with a six-gun.
John had buried his shell belt and six-shooter in the graveyard to keep his son happy, but the happiness doesn't last long once Sikora and his gang arrive to terrorize the town.
A crazy man named Joshua (Jim van der Woude who looks like long-time Hollywood supporting actor Hank Worden) live with Doc, Pearl, and Jeremiah.
Predictably, Sikora tries to prod John into a gunfight, but John will have nothing to do with Sikora.There is a good scene early in the action after John Lowen comes to town.
He scares the villain off when he assures his opponent that he can draw somebody else's gun and shoot him quicker than his opponent can clear leather.
Lowen's advice about how to win in a shoot-out is unlike anything you've ever seen in a western, too.
Meaning, if your opponent is a right-handed shooter, you jump to the right and shoot because he won't move in the opposite direction."Gunslinger's Revenge" is actually pretty good for a foreign western..
"If a man's got a good sense of balance, he'll never die.".
Johnny Lowen's (Harvey Keitel) advice to 'go the other way' to his young grandson was well executed by crazy old Joshua (Jim van der Woude) in what was a cool ending for an evil David Bowie.I have to admit, seeing Bowie's name in the credits was the main reason I tuned into this one on the Encore Western Channel.
Besides that, I really didn't need another one, as Westerns are my favorite genre and I catch as many as I can.
Another surprise was this one turning out to be a spaghetti Western of sorts, but instead of your classic Ennio Morricone score, the opening music more resembled something coming out of "The Godfather".
So in that respect this was more like a gangster Western, especially after Bowie and his crew showed up in Basin Flats.On the subject of Bowie as a Western villain, I had to groan a bit when he first came on screen.
Poor Mary, there was no way Jack Sikora (Bowie) could have known about the knife, but he didn't really need a reason to shoot her given his character.
Later he borrowed a page from Peter Townsend and The Who by whacking Joshua across the head with his guitar - nice touch.I suppose I should be more critical of the picture because other than Bowie, Keitel and the colorful cast of characters, this isn't one of the better Westerns you're likely to come across.
I didn't care a whole lot for Leonardo Pieraccioni as Doc Lowen; it's OK to be a pacifist in a Western but his luck would have run out if gunslinger Dad hadn't ridden into town.
One suggestion I would have made in the casting, since Joshua looked so much like Keith Richards, that's the guy I would have called on for more of a rock and roll flavor.
But man, you can't beat that weirdo showdown where Bowie looked like the man who fell to earth..
I liked this film for many reasons.
For one, many Native actors were involved, although it was a little on the Hollywood side.
Another reason: Sandrine Holt.
Even though she's not Native in real life, she may as well be one because she looks way more like a First Nations person than anything else.
I love how she portrays Native people in films!
I'm surprised that this one was completely directed and produced by Italians!
I mean it's a historically fictional Western.
Fortunately it's not another one of those spaghetti westerns where Clint Eastwood does his heroic stuff, although I like Clint Eastwood too.One thing did bother me about Johnny Lowen, it was obvious that he lip-synced his dialogue.
Now, I think it was really dumb to have Italian actors and actresses in this one because it ruined the film.
Obviously he can't speak a word of English in real life so I just feel that it was stupid to have a voice-over come in and speak for him!!
Other than that, it's still a fine film.
The Native actors were great as they usually are and Sandrine Holt was also great.
But what I found strange is WHY Jack Sikora confronted Johnny Lowen.
Some films will do that where the audience draws their own conclusions.