Diamante Lobo

I bought this DVD for $3 in a bargain bin. I was expecting a horrid movie with an outside shot at "so bad it's funny", but was pleasantly surprised by it.

The plot was actually OK. The idea was good and there were a couple of interesting twists. On the bad side, the movie was poorly made, the style was completely ripped off from the spaghetti westerns, and some of the acting was terrible. Still worth a viewing, though.

I give it a 8/10 for plot, 5/10 for acting and dialogue, and 3/10 for production values. Because the plot is the most important thing (are you listening George Lucas?), I give it an overall rating of 6/10.

The strangest thing of all about this terrible western is that while it has the look feel and especially the SOUND (loud, overdone) of a spaghetti western, most of the talent involved in the top positions were not European, including the director. Also, the three male leads did not sound right. The lead Lee van Cleef, sounded like himself most of the time , but Jack Palance and Richard Boone were dubbed. This is especially clear with Richard Boone who has a very distinctive voice. If someone out there can tell me why you would dub a distinctive sounding American actor's voice into English, please tell me. I liked the plot twist of the twin brother but this is a bad movie. Enough said!

Actually, this is just a comment. I did not find the movie as bad as ejhutchez, but I did enjoy it. (I am a westerns freak, so that may have had something to do with it). Make no mistake, it is no classic- but it is watchable. Anyways, the point I wanted to make is that the three American stars, all of whom- particularly Jack Palance- have trade mark voices and ways of talking were all poorly dubbed by what seem (or rather sound) to be Italian actors. That just strikes me as really weird. I do agree that the dual roles played by Van Cleef were the best part of the movie by far and that Boone and Palance did indeed seem to be walking through their parts. Still, it's better than a Tom Cruise movie.

The votes seem rather low for this; my guess is that those voting aren't familiar with (or fans of) westerns from the 1960's / 1970's. As they go, this one isn't bad at all.

Lee Van Cleef was excellent; Leif Garrett went from underplaying to overplaying in some scenes, but that was probably what the director was wanting. Jack Palance was the surprise to me; he is usually the epitome of a villain. Here, I thought that the menace was a bit overdone to the point of being lost.

My vote was 5, could have been better, but is quite watchable.

I don't suppose many Westerns were made in Israel, but this seems to be the most famous. It looks like they've gone for the 'Spaghetti Western' look rather than the conventional and so should appeal to those who like those movies. Well....if they can get past the terrible direction, wonky camera-work, and Leif Garrett's acting.

Van Cleef plays a preacher(looking like Satan) who is gunned down in cold blood by Palance's vicious gang. Garrett, who witnesses the event is struck dumb and heads off to Mexico to find Van Cleef's twin brother, a top gunman who vowed to his brother he would never kill with a gun again. Van Cleef heads back to avenge his brother's death, but tries to do so in a manner that doesn't involve shooting them all.

There's clearly a good Western here, but it's lost beneath the ineptitude of the film makers. That said, Van Cleef's twin performance is excellent, and Palance hams(pun not intended) it up like only he can. 5/10