Le shérif ne pardonne pas

"The Deadly Trackers" has a terrific cast. Put them in any other western and it would be great. For some reason this movie isn't so good. The most annoying thing in the movie, hands down, is Neville Brand's metal hand. It's just so stupid that it's wildly distracting. That's not the only problem with "The Deadly Trackers". This movie suffers from a cheapness to the production. It looks like a low budget spaghetti western. That may have been the type of western that they were trying to make but it just doesn't work. What a shame. "The Deadly Trackers" could have been great. (Just for the record, I enjoyed this movie tonight more than I did the last time I saw it. I'll give it another go in a few months. See what happens.)

The big surprise in The Deadly Trackers is Rod Taylor's emergence as one mean and nasty villain here. Although he had played a bad guy early in his career in Hell on Frisco Bay as a contract killer, the public was used to Rod as the civilized fellow bringing a sense of order to a future world in The Time Machine. He's anything, but civilized in The Deadly Trackers.

Richard Harris is a sheriff with some rather strange notions about capture instead of killing in a lawless land. Rod Taylor and his gang rob the bank in Harris's town and kill the bank manager on a whim. Then when Harris tries to capture and use reason with Taylor, Harris's wife and son become dead also.

That gives our sheriff a whole new outlook and he hunts the gang into Mexico where he teams up with a federale played by Al Lettieri who has all the ideas Harris used to have.

This was the farewell performance of Al Lettieri and interesting that he went out as a good guy here. He created a great group of villains in The Godfather, McQ, Mr. Majestyk, and The Getaway. He was a great talent.

Some attention was paid to the fact that Harris is an Irish sheriff and for that matter Rod Taylor is Australian. But America is in fact a nation of immigrants and this should be no stranger than Errol Flynn's emergence as a western star in the heyday of the studio.

This is a violent and gory western packed with thrills , noisy action , riding pursuits , shootouts and a real vendetta . It deals with a sheriff , Sean Kilpatrick (Richard Harris) , who heads Southwest of the border to get his pound of flesh from the bandits led by Brand (Rod Taylor , when Sam Fuller was going to direct, he wanted Terence Stamp for the role) and hoodlums (Neville Brand , William Smith , Paul Benjamin) , all of them slew his family in a bank robbery . Across his chase into Mexico , Sean is challenged by an upright Mexican Sheriff (Al Lettieri) and things go wrong .

Exciting western that displays an extreme battle of wits and strong story about a merciless vengeance among some spiteful characters . Being based on a story written by the great Samuel Fuller titled ¨Riata¨ and with an interesting screenplay by the prestigious Lukas Heller who also wrote ¨Dirty Dozen¨, ¨Monty Walsh¨ , ¨Too late the hero¨ , ¨What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?¨ and ¨Flight of the Phoenix¨ . Duo protagonist is frankly well , as Richard Harris and Rod Taylor , both of whom give excellent acting . Support cast is awesome such as Neville Brand , William Smith , Al Lettieri , Isela Vega , Paul Benjamin , William Bryant , Pedro Armendariz , among others . The picture is pretty well but it might have been more bearable if Samuel Fuller had not been bumped from the director chair as it is , he and other contributors refused to be listed in the credits . Furthermore , it is full of atmospheric musical score by Fred Steiner . And an evocative and colorful cinematography by Gabriel Torres .

The motion picture was professionally directed by Barry Shear , though it has some flaws and gaps . Barry took the filmmaking from uncredited Sam Fuller who was replaced as director at an early stage . Shear directed some nice films , such as ¨Across 110th Street¨ and ¨Wild in the streets¨ and a lot of TV episodes . Rating : 6 , acceptable and passable western

After The Wild Bunch had pushed back a few boundaries in terms of violence, especially within the western genre, there followed a spate of similar westerns. Billy Two Hats, Chato's Land, The Hunting Party, The Revengers and The Last Hard Men were among the front-runners. Also on any list of brutal '70s revenge-westerns would be The Deadly Trackers, originally planned as a Samuel Fuller movie but completed by Barry Shear after Fuller quit the project. This violent, bloodthirsty film is, alas, somewhat disappointing.

Irish sheriff Sean Kilpatrick (Richard Harris) looks after the Texas town of Santa Rosa and has made a point of solving crimes and capturing criminals without resorting to violence. In fact, he has never in his life fired a gun in anger, yet has somehow fostered total law, order and respect among the townsfolk. His methods are tested to the limit when outlaw Frank Brand (Rod Taylor in a surprisingly sadistic performance) and his gang rob the local bank. During their escape attempt, the outlaws inadvertently kill Kilpatrick's own wife and child. Devastated, Kilpatrick ditches his anti-gun, anti-violence attitude and pursues Brand and his cronies. The chase leads to Mexico, where Kilpatrick has no official authority and is viewed as little more than an outlaw himself. The Irish sheriff tracks down and kills Brand's gang one-by-one, until just he and Brand remain.

Just a year earlier, Barry Shear had made the film Across 110th Street, regarded as the most violent movie ever made up to that point, so it's perhaps no surprise that this film emphasises the gore and brutality to the extent it does. Harris is quite memorable as the Irish sheriff, giving another of his energetic performances, and Taylor's villainous turn reveals an ugly side rarely portrayed by the actor in his other films. However, in most aspects The Deadly Trackers fails to make the grade as a good, worthwhile film. It is far too simplistic for its own good, with no resonance beyond the immediate plot (and the plot itself is pretty basic, being nothing more than a straightforward chase narrative). The supporting performances are generally rather lacklustre, possibly because none of the characters beyond the two principal players carry much depth or interest. Also, the story is dismayingly familiar, with precious little that it fresh or original; just lots of tired and predictable scenes that have been begged, borrowed and stolen from many other sources (even the music is lifted directly from The Wild Bunch.... perhaps to keep the budget down?) On the whole, The Deadly Trackers is a dismal misfire in which the detail to violence and the intriguing lead performances are the sole points of interest.

With a soundtrack lifted straight off "The Wild Bunch" and a premise from any number of superior films (not just westerns), "The Deadly Trackers" is nothing more than a shameless plagiarism. Solid cast is wasted in stereotypical roles, only Al Lettieri breaks the mould as a sympathetic policeman on the trail of Harris, a former lawman taking revenge on those who murdered his family.

Taylor is the key villain, sadistic and for all intents and purposes, effective in his role. His ragtag crew including Brand, Smith and Benjamin are less convincing, with Smith (a cult favourite) flexing his muscles for one bloody fist fight before a premature exit. The movie basically lurches from one bloody encounter to the next, as Harris exacts merciless revenge, in turn pursued by Lettieri intent on taking him alive in the name of justice.

The contrast from his pre-family massacre pacifist (to the extent that guns are prohibited in his town), to that of total maniac who bludgeons his victims to bloodied pulp, is aimed at conveying the message that even the most gentle soul can turn feral under the most intense desperation. Just in case you fail to pick up on that message, there's a plethora of fatal beatings and progressively more sadistic retaliations to underline the point, culminating in a face-off between Harris and Taylor at an orphanage where they compete for wildest animal honours.

It's been written that Harris threw a lot of weight in the making of this picture, and it does have the appearance of being a one-man-stand, built around Harris from every angle in every frame. If only some of that attention had been dedicated to the script and plot, the outcome could have been much more rewarding. As it is, "The Deadly Trackers" is a pointless orgy of violence, a less than impressive vehicle in which to showcase the least of Harris' acting range. Uninspiring.