DUCK, YOU SUCKER! [AKA A FISTFUL OF DYNAMITE] (1971)

[Rev. Powell]

A bandito (Rod Steiger) and an Irish terrorist and master dynamiter (James Coburn) cross paths during the Mexican revolution of 1910.  Leone's followup to the magnificent ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST; Morricone returns to do the music.

There are so many things that are wrong with this movie that it's easy to forget the good points.  The setting and scenario are interesting, and the action sequences and landscapes are good, as usual.  But back to what's wrong...

It starts with James Cobruns theme music.  Coburn's acting is not bad at all, but he has some of the worst theme music of all time, trotted out at the most inappropriate moments.  A choir of women chants "Sean, Sean, Sean" in an uninspiring comedic crescendo every time his character does something of minor significance.  It really has to be heard to understand how deflating the theme it is; but if you remember how powerful snippets of Morricone's awesome score would punctuate key scenes in THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY, just imagine the opposite effect.  Steiger has similar silly music that chants "Juan, Juan" but it rarely appears despite the fact that his character has equal weight in the script.       

Other problems with the movie:

* at 157 minutes it's far too long.
* Rod Steiger's character seems to be a faint rehash of TGTBTU's Tuco, except that he lacks the uncompromising egotism that made Tuco so much fun. (Eli Wallach was originally slated to costar but had other commitments)
* the emotional relationship between the two leads never resonates.
* no Lee van Cleef 
* the overall tone is wrong; Leone seems to try to be making a light buddy picture in the mold of BUTCH CASSIDY AND THE SUNDANCE KID (only with flashes of gloomy violence) instead of sticking to the operatic style he did best.   

A friend of mine maintains that this is a true BAD movie; I think it's just a flawed good movie that doesn't work.  At least it aspires to be something different than the run of the mill action flick, although the experiment fails.

2/5 slimes.  LESSON LEARNED: James Coburn should not be allowed to have theme music. 

[Oldskool138]

Why is this in the Good Movies forum?   

[Rev. Powell]

I thought long and hard about which forum to go with... this could have fit in either.  I guess I just couldn't bring myself to put a Leone picture in the "bad" column. 

Forgot to mention one more complaint... "Sucker" sounds like blaxploitation slang, rather than IRA terrorist slang.   

[Yaddo 42]

In Leone's defense, this was a film project where he came onboard rather than developed for himself like most of his films. It was originally supposed to be directed by Peter Bogdonovich. Also some critcs say he was trying to ride the wave of "political" spaghetti westerns that had become popular within the genre during those real life turbulent years.

I like some of the music, the stuff during the tire shooting sequence makes me smile just thinking about it now. Steiger is over the top, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Coburn's performance hits the right notes as a man who has a cause, and can manipulate others into joining it, but who has also been betrayed personally and lost he cared about back home. The action is thrilling, the story needs some work.

I liked the film, although more for the parts rather than the sum of those parts. I would like to see this restoration, most versions I've see chime in at around 129 minutes. I did see it on a UPN station once cut to fit in a two hour block with commercials, talk about a choppy mess.

[Rev. Powell]

Fair points, Yaddo.  I didn't realize Leone took over the project late.  Morricone's music was actually good throughout, with the exception of the theme song music.  Cobrun's acting is good: thankfully, he was not asked to try to recreate the Eastwood/Bronson style stoic hero.  Sterling's acting is also fine, but I don't think his character was as well written as Coburn's. The fact that it evokes Wallach's classic performance makes it suffer, possibly unfairly, by comparison.   

157 minutes is simply too long for this story.  I can imagine that it would be horrible chopped into 2 hrs. with commercial breaks, though.