For a Few Dollars More

I'd rank it slightly below the original, but that's unimportant as <em>'For a Few Dollars More'</em> is still a lot of fun. Clint Eastwood is tremendous again as the lead character, while Gian Maria Volonté reappears as a different character - usually I'm not a fan of actors playing different characters in a series, but I must make an exception here as Volonté is terrific; just as he is in the preceding 1964 film. One newcomer to the cast is Lee Van Cleef, who is brilliant too. A story regarding bounty hunting was always going to be enjoyable, which is most definitely the case here. The aforementioned trio are massively entertaining. I particularly found the ending to be one of the best parts of this. I was excited to check out <em>'The Good, the Bad and the Ugly'</em> even prior to watching the first two films, given it's the one I knew most of beforehand, but its two predecessors really have wet the appetite and then some!

This is a waste of some wit. Of the dollar trilogy, this one had some wit to it, but it's wasted. There's an ongoing weird counting that the bounty hunters perform, which finally makes sense in the end. There's an interesting bit about the chimes, and drawing when the chime ends. And we get a name for No Name. But it's wasted on a movie that Leone made during what must have been the days when he really hated some brunette who scorned him. He spends most of the movie contriving so many ways to kill brunettes that he obviously is seeking a Nazi merit badge. He stopped worshiping Adolf and Eva soon after the dollar trilogy, though. There's no way to get past his Nazi ideology in this movie, and it ruins the movie. Not to mention the lack of credible characters and lack of credible motivation. Again, it's a case of everyone in the West is either a homicidal maniac or the first victims of homicidal maniacs, no exceptions. The weakest part, and part that makes anyone with an IQ over 15 groan, is that Leone is not subtle about his message that the more of a homicidal maniac a man is, the more of a demigod he is, and more immortal he is. Only another demigod can kill a demigod, and only a homicidal maniac can be a demigod. It appears the only way to be a god is to be the biggest homicidal maniac. If everyone was like this, there would be no one left to be like this. A waste of wit, which is bad, because this is the only one of the Leone Westerns which made any attempt at wit.