Compañeros

Get ready for a run-on... A Spaghetti Western set in the Mexican Revolution about a foreign mercenary played by Franco Nero who makes an uneasy alliance with a Mexican bandito who unwittingly becomes a revolutionary while simultaneously falling in love with a freedom-fighter chick who is really hot, all while being tracked by an eccentric villain played by Jack Palance...directed by Sergio Corbucci, with a score by Ennio Morricone and a few machine gun massacres and at least one scene where someone is buried up to his neck while horses are about to trample on his head. Ummm...haven't I seen this before? Oh yeah, it was called "The Mercenary" and stands as one of the best Spaghetti Westerns of all time. "Companeros", on the other hand, is an entertaining piece chock full of humor and action (although, like the two protagonists, the alliance between humor and action is not always a smooth one). The pacing could use some work and there wasn't enough nudity (ok, I'm joking on the last one...could have used more nudity though)

Where was I? Oh yeah, "Companeros" is bad-ass fun with one of the greatest shootouts of all time (Nero + Machine Gun = Bad-assery at its best). Wow, what a terrible review.

Vamos a Matar Companeros! is an authentic, made in Italy, Spaghetti Western film classic and is a must see movie for anyone who wants to discover the very best of the Spaghetti Western film genre. This Western-Comedy film was directed by Sergio Corbucci, the number #2 Italian director of all time for Spaghetti Westerns, after of course Sergio Leone, for the entire Spaghetti Western genre, which is saying a lot because there were hundreds of films in that genre alone! This film is just plain fun and entertaining to watch! All the actors are charismatic, comical and professional. The all star cast in the film are Jack Palance, Franco Nero and Thomas Milian. The story is basically about the Mexican Revolution of 1910 where a mercenary (Nero) and rebels, lead by rebel leader (Milian), must rescue a idealist professor to lead the revolution who is held hostage in Texas. This film was made during the height of student protests to the Vietnam War in the late 1960's and early 1970's which may explain the political theme. There are many good scenes, too many to list here, but the best scenes and most surreal, in my opinion, are the ones with the pet falcon and the strange one wooden-handed and marijuana smoking villain (Palance).

The cinematography is beautifully filmed by cinematographer Alejandro Ulloa who also filmed other excellent Spaghetti Westerns. The music in the film is by the maestro of Spaghetti Western music and film music in general, Italian composer Ennio Morricone. Companeros includes a theme song and the beautiful classic acoustic and twangy electric guitar riffs invented by Morricone.

Not in any way is this meant to sound biased, because actually there are some truly great spaghetti westerns out there. Companeros may not be one of the absolute best of them, but to me it's among the most fun. It is a little of a slow-starter and a touch episodic at first and it's less than original, but when the rest of the film is so much fun and so well put together they don't seem to matter.

Companeros is a brilliantly made film, with gorgeously evocative scenery and costumes and stylish cinematography that give off a dream-like quality and harsh realism. Sergio Corbucci's direction as to be expected is exemplary, it's technically faultless while never getting in the way of the storytelling. Ennio Morricone's music score will not disappoint any fans of his and is one of the film's best assets, it's not quite one of his all-time greats but it's haunting and stirring and the theme song is one of the catchiest theme songs for any film. Like almost all his work, it really gives the film soul. Companeros is smartly scripted filled with subtle witty humour, it has blistering action especially one of the most suspenseful and entertaining shoot-out scenes I've ever seen for a film and the story is exciting, tense and fun-filled with a truly sensational and quite emotional ending.

The cast is a talented one and Companeros in no way wastes the actors. Particularly good is Jack Palance, here he has one of his most loathsome characters and Palance's performance is devilishly enjoyable, clearly looking like he was having a ball. While he is a scene-stealer, Franco Nero and Tomas Milian do wonderfully in the lead roles too, in performances filled with charisma and likability, and work like dynamite together in a film where their chemistry ties it together. Overall, a great film and a huge lot of fun to watch. 9/10 Bethany Cox

By 1970 the initial gold rush of the spaghetti western was over and directors were seeking new ways to push the genre forward. Trinita opted for a satirical approach while Sabata brought James Bond sensibilities to the classic anti-hero. Others chose to use the Mexican revolution as the backdrop for the escapades of their heroes. That is the case for Sergio Corbucci's Companeros.

It is essentially a remake or a reimagining of Corbucci's The Mercenary, using much of the same cast, and swapping Tony Musante as the Mexican revolutionary for the great Thomas Milian. Franco Nero plays once again the European (this time a Swede) and Jack Palance returns to the fold as the ruthless if not semi-insane baddie. All of them hit all the right notes and Nero and Milian's interactions are a joy to behold. The story opens with a duel between the two in a dusty Mexican village and the whole movie is a flashback that leads us to the events at the start of the movie, again as in The Mercenary two years earlier. Nero and Milian are employed by corrupt Mexican General Mongo to travel to the US and free the Mexican professor Xantos that is held captive in Fort Yuma. Xantos is the leader of another small group of student revolutionaries, but General Mongo wants him for more practical reasons. Xantos knows the code to a safe that is impossible to open and with the gold General Mongo hopes to finance the revolution against Porfirio Diaz. Or does he? Each one has his own personal agenda of course. As they make their way back to Mexico, a semi-insane Jack Palance with a wooden hand (do I sense a small Son of Frankenstein tribute here?) and a hawk will hunt them down and the two companeros will slowly begin to take to the more noble attitude of the professor.

Here Corbucci goes for a more Leone-esquire approach, leaving the dark and brooding nature of his previous westerns (like Django and The Great Silence) behind. As Leone used to say, this is a "fairytale for grown ups". The story takes us from the Mexican revolution to the Fort Yuma prison to the Rio Grande to a spectacular showdown in the end, with comedic touches, wild shootouts, explosions, a typically great Morricone score and excellent performances and cinematography. This is more of an adventure spaghetti western in the Leone tradition. It's considerably light-hearted but fused with the same political undertones one could find in Sergio Sollima's work and brilliant pacing. Above all, this is A grade entertainment like only the Italians can deliver.

Sergio Corbucci is not considered only second to Leone in the spaghetti western realm for no reason. His attention to detail, from the sets, camera angles, props, costumes and cinematography is impeccable and he manages to convey that iconic aspect of the west only the Europeans were able to capture. Don't miss it.

A great time-capsule of the kinds of mildly subversive escapism you could enjoy at the movies, back in 1970. Revolution was in the air, and (Cuban-born) Tomas Milian adds the necessary Castro/Che/Bob Dylan charisma as a peasant turned freedom fighter. Franco Nero is the super cool James Bond-like foreign agent. The two form a wary partnership to rescue the Professor (Fernando Rey) from the clutches of various bad guys, including Jack Palance at his twitchy best playing a cartoonish psycho, who feeds his beloved hawk the flesh of the peasants. A seriously attractive radicalized woman leads up her own gang of rebels. More a Mel Brooks, or Mad Magazine, spoof than a serious political tract, this Italian Western nonetheless has a lot of style, and much to recommend it. Morricone's music is like his Leone scores, but in comic overdrive...and satisfying. There's much inventive (mild/comedic) cruelty: Franco Nero maintaining his cool while buried up to his head and threatened by horses' hooves is both disturbing and very, very funny. And, director/writer Corbucci riffs expertly on Spaghetti Western conventions. You get the pleasure of a director who knows his genre, and knows that you do, too.