A Fistful of Dollars

AshJohann

December 22, 2020

8/10

Funny child acting, nonsense sense of distance, bad dubbing and weak dialogue bring down an otherwise magnificent film. A Western remake of Yojimbo, it's remarkable how such a simple story can lend itself to such a great experience. The atmosphere is built up masterfully - with stunning cinematography, striking close-ups, beautifully constructed mise-en-scene, a fantastic performance from Eastwood, Moricone's ever powerful music, and a lovely overabundance of laughing - all culminating in one of…

Even better than I remember. The story was more interesting than I remembered. The Man With No Name is more fun in this movie than I remembered. The side characters are more interesting than I remembered. My only complaints are that some of the acting and parts of the script could be better. This is really epic movie that I would not mind watching again!

r96sk

January 10, 2022

9/10

A supremely entertaining western from 1964! I will say the dubbing nature of <em>'A Fistful of Dollars'</em> is a little distracting early on, but by the time the opening portion concluded I was incredibly interested in what was happening onscreen. The pacing is excellent, thanks to some very fine cinematography, great action sequences and a top notch score. Clint Westwood debuts as a leading movie star and is terrific throughout, portraying the wonderfully named J̶o̶e̶ "the Man with No Na…

drystyx

April 18, 2023

1/10

Leone almost single handedly destroyed the Western. But it wasn't "single handed" because he had help from the critics who were even bigger hacks than Leone was. Here, we have a movie based on Yojimbo, which is called a classic by some, though I doubt it is truly a classic. "Seven Samurai" is a classic, but not "Yojimbo". Still, "Yojimbo" is better than this, because too much is lost in translation here. It's a thoroughly unmotivated movie about totally unmotivated characters. The only in…

CinemaSerf

November 5, 2023

7/10

With barely enough cash to buy a drink, drifter "Joe" (Clint Eastwood) rides into a small, pretty war-torn town near the US/Mexican border. He makes friends with the bar owner "Silvanito" (José Calvo) and pretty quickly finds himself drawn into the brutal quarrelling between "Baxter" (Wolfgang Lukschy) and his nemesis "Rojo" (Gian Maria Volonté). When he kills a few of the former man's troops, it's the brother of the latter who offers him a job. Turns out that "Joe" is a bit more shrewd than tha…

A fistful of dollars A very tasty spaghetti Western. 80% A lone white man riding on horseback slowly approaches a well near a couple of isolated homes, in order to drink some water. He observes a little boy running between the two homes and then entering one. The little boy is unceremoniously ejected from the home by two non-white men with pistols. You can tell that they are bad men because they shoot bullets next to the boy in order to scare him. A young woman, perhaps the boy's mother, loo…