The Mercenary AKA A Professional Gun
Judging by the cheap cover design and double feature aspect common among Spaghettis these days I expected the quality on this DVD set to be poor. I was surprised to find an excellent transfer, complete, uncut and widescreen!
Even better, it's actually a two disc set so both films aren't crowded onto one disc. THE MERCENARY is the first of Sergio Corbucci's Mexican Revoltion Trilogy that continued with COMPANEROS and WHAT AM I DOING IN THE MIDDLE OF A REVOLUTION (saddly laking a Region One DVD release). If you enjoy the somewhat better known Companeros with Franco Nero and Tomas Milian you will be sure to enjoy The Mercenary. It too stars Franco Nero as a foreign gun for hire in Mexico during the Revolution, however, he does not play the same character "the Swede" as seen in Companeros but here plays "the Polak", though the two characters are basically the same.
I expected to miss Tomas Milian in the bandit role this time around but was pleasantly surprised by Tony Musante's...
two westerns that have never looked better
"The Mercenary" is one of the best spaghetti westerns, which doesn't necessarily sound like much of a compliment, but it is. In fact, it is one of the best Euro-westerns ever made, those who like the Eastwood-Leone "dollars" trilogy or the original "Django" will enjoy this one as well. In fact it reteams star Franco Nero and his "Django" director auteur Sergio Corbuchi, perhaps the most underrated western director of them all, coming fresh off his masterpiece The Great Silence, this is about as good as most anything else he did. Also starring the legendary Jack Palance (as "Curly", a name that will seem familiar to fans of his Oscar winning role in "City Slickers"). This "amazon.com exclusive" DVD looks great, and is worth the purchase.
Also included is the more dismissive spaghetti western knock-off "God's Gun" starring Lee Van Cleef, Richard Boone and once again Palance, in fact to make this set more...
Corbucci amd Morricone a great partnership
I have been a fan of spaghetti westerns ever since seeing the 'man with no name' trilogy. Apart from the rugged anti-heroes portrayed the Morricone soundtrack made the experience both alive and moving. It would seem that Leone and Corbucci broke the mould which spawned way too many poor imitations, including some of the forgettable Hollywood attempts.
In The Mercenary we have Jack Palance play a homosexual (or at least that is what seems to be inferred) mercenary siding with the Mexican Government, while Franco Nero (with blond hair and looking uncannily like Terrence Hill) playing a Polish mercenary siding with Tony Musante portraying a Mexican bandit morphing into a revolutionary. Nothing too deep in this movie, but a treasure just the same and an excellent quality transfer to the DVD format. The haunting Morricone soundtrack greatly adds to the positive experience for me. I have yet to watch God's Gun, but I am sure Lee Van Cleef will not disappoint.
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