‘Where life had no value, death, sometimes, had its price…’
I’ll never be a true western fan, but there is no denying that Sergio Leone is one of the greatest directors of all time. His spaghetti westerns are a law unto themselves, and as with any true auteur, you can tell a Leone film within the first five minutes – for better or for worse…
Monco (Clint Eastwood), otherwise known as the Man with No Name, and Col. Douglas Mortimor (Lee Van Cleef) are both bounty hunters on the tail of a notorious Mexican outlaw self-styled as El Indio (Gian Maria Volontè). Nice and simple.
Cinematic purists would be horrified about my relationship with Leone’s Dollars trilogy. I watched the third film, The Good, The Bad and The Ugly first, then moved on to the second film, For a Few Dollars More, and I’ve never seen A Fistful of Dollars – the movie that kicked it all off. That’s partly because I didn’t even know there was such a trilogy when I started watching this movie, and partly because A Fistful of Dollars isn’t in the IMDB top 250. That being said, I’ve enjoyed the latter two movies in the trilogy so much that despite my reticence to watch westerns, I will get around to the opening movie at some point. But what of this film?
Well, Clint Eastwood is revelatory as ever. There has probably never been a better pairing of director and actor than Leone and Eastwood. The iconic actor just belongs in this world. The same could also be said for Van Cleef, however. Both are incredible here, but it is those two cinematic legends paired with Leone’s show-stopping visuals and Ennio Morricone’s transgressive score that ensures that For a Few Dollars More deserves its reputation as one of the all-time great westerns.
If you’re not into this kind of thing, this won’t be the film to change your mind, but its sheer power as a cinematic force cannot be denied. Filmmaking at its very best.