Jonathan degli orsi

Director Castellari reteams with star/co-producer Franco Nero in this Italo-Russian production which is a belated follow-up of sorts to their earlier, acclaimed collaboration KEOMA (1976). This newer venture shares with that earlier one not only its Western setting and a similarly grizzled, long-haired hero but also a touch of pretentiousness and a painful song score (composed by the unsympathetic minstrel figure who appears intermittently throughout)!

The film starts well enough with the black and white flashback to the hero's traumatic witnessing as a young boy of his parents' slaying by a trio of greedy badmen after their gold, while the segments featuring the boy's interaction with a playful bear cub are also quite amiable. However, we have seen the "white man among the Redskins" scenario – albeit incongruously played here by Mongols – which follows soon after (complete with their seemingly interminable quasi-mystical passages) far too often for those scenes to propose anything new. Equally predictable are David Hess' villainous overtaking of a town, Nero falling foul of Hess and his henchmen and their various confrontations; interestingly, Hess had to complete his part in a short space of time because he couldn't get along with Nero – with whom he had previously acted in HITCH-HIKE (1977).

Things are enlivened by the late entrance of powerful entrepreneur John Saxon who, with his aged group of gunslingers, wipes the town clean of Hess and their unaccountably campy rivals – a group of stud-sporting, leather-wearing, bare-chested musclemen!! Like Keoma before him, Franco Nero's character here occasionally steps outside of himself and is witness to his own past experiences as a child; also, he suffers greatly at the hands of the current villain including crucifixion. The climactic confrontation (staged, again as was KEOMA's, in a barnyard) is appropriately rousing and ends the film on a positive note which redeems some of its earlier flaws.

I think not... there's been a few since then such as "My West" with Harvey Keitel but maybe this shall be the last notable one, by one of the few remaining original Spaghetti Western directors Enzo G. Castellari.

As some you know, the Italian film industry was in complete disarray by the end of the 1980's as they failed to be able to compete against American films and video sales. By 1990 Italian film was relegated mostly to low budget art films and TV movies, but in the early 90's the dissolution of the Soviet Union brought about a continuance of the spirit of cooperation between Italy and Russia not enjoyed much since the early 70's. Several big budget co-productions emerged in these first few years but largely became fiasco's such as the only recently finished QUIET FLOWS THE DON and the ever-languishing GENGHIS KHAN. In the true spirit of Italian copycat film-making, with DANCES WITH WOLVES garnering much critical and financial praise at the time, it only made sense to try a Spaghetti Western in the vast expanses of the largely untouched motherland. Hire on Castellari, who in turn brings a few of his regulars (but strangely no Romano Puppo), David Hess, John Saxon, and you get a highly entertaining oddly cast and strangely themed last gasp of a nearly forgotten genre.

Franco Nero produces (put up the money in a retread down memory lane) and plays a part that would have better suited him 15 years earlier (and it did when it was called "KEOMA") as a gunslinger raised by Indians and befriended by a bear. He's out for revenge against the thugs who killed his birth parents while trying to stop an evil politician (Saxon) from ruining the environment with oil prospecting, plus he still has an old rivalry to settle with his step brother. There's also a local ruffian played by Roderigo Obregon (I am guessing that he was being groomed by the Italian film industry to be the next Werner Pochath - to play a creepy sleaze bag in every film), who kidnaps Nero's woman.

While this is easily one of Enzo's most technically polished films... especially in terms of cinematography with MANY beautiful shots, JONATHAN is lacking much of the fun and originality of Enzo's previous efforts. It's still a good film, but pales in comparison to KEOMA, to which it owes very much, if not everything. Characteristically for Castellari, it's loaded with slow motion (though editor Moriani is no Amicucci or Tomassi), and there's a few film in-jokes like the chief villain Goodwin being named after Enzo's son-in-law Greg Goodwin. Many of the action sequences are rather unbelievable, or borderline ridiculous, and a lot of the Native American extras look more like Kazakhs or Uzbekhs to me, but I'm just nitpicking.

Considering the rest of Italy's output at the time, it's amazing this film is as good as it is. A shame it never got a proper distribution, as well as a shame that it didn't re-kick-start Castellari's career.

That's Castelari's sequel to Keoma - Violent Breed. Although it's more a wildlife - adventure movie than a western it's quite good !

E.C. is back after a long string of unspectacular flops dating back almost twenty years before the release of this late entry Spaghettio. Franco Nero returns in a sloppy, long-haired guise emulated after his titular Keoma, but the similarities to that masterpiece end right about there unless you want to count the atrocious, narrating vocal musicals that are so self-absorbed and confident in their strangeness, I have to give the makers some ballsy credit. The film comes off as pretentious propaganda, tackling numerous themes unsuccessfully, the most blatant and offensive being racial prejudice and oil production. And naturally, given its release date, when revisionist Westerns were all the rage in Hollywood, we're deprived of proper bloody action and served CBS mini-series drama and cues. I counted only one decent slow-mo Enzo battle and that consisted mainly of dangerous horse stunts not balletic squibs and shooting spray. The bear subplot was a new idea albeit handled with a lacking child performance which somehow finds its way into every dramatic arc for the rest of the feature. The most amusing instant comes during a fight where the participants turn into their younger counterparts! The lil' cub was pretty cute though.

David Hess and John Saxon provide some legitimate villainry. Even Enzo's real-life papa adds a bearded grittiness to his role. On the technical side, this is the most polished work Castellari has done. Gone are the paintball squibs, shoddy camera-work and cheap pyrotechnics, but all this guerrilla charm is a trade off for the stock orchestral music and dramatic fodder. I'll take The Big Racket any day. Hell, Light Blast.

When Enzo G. Castellari and Franco Nero made "Keoma" in 1976, the Spaghetti Western genre was already well passed its glory days, and yet it was a fantastic film; - perhaps one of the best in its kind. When Castellari and Nero got back together in 1995 for "Jonathan and the Bears", the Spaghetti Western genre was even completely extinct, and they still delivered a great film! Speaking of which, I remember seeing this film in my local video store in the 90s and it had the title "Keoma II". It's not a sequel, although there are quite a few similarities. The director and lead star, obviously, but both films also have a distinct and dedicated soundtrack, and they both revolve a lone warrior fighting against injustice.

As a cherubic blond boy, Jonathan witnesses the brutal execution of his parents. Alone in the woods, he befriends a bear cub and eventually finds a home in an Indian tribe. As an adult, he helps to protect the Indian village against the white men coming to drill for oil. Because the white man comes to kill. The white man ALWAYS comes to kill.

"Jonathan of the Bears" is a great and action-packed western, with the right balance of sentiment versus cruel violence. Franco Nero is a fabulous hero, but this story particularly features a long list of awesome villains! Of all the stone-cold and merciless scoundrels John Saxon depicted in his career, and they are plenty, his character here is definitely one of the evilest. He's also surrounded by unhinged henchmen (like a religious freak) and random psychopaths, like David Hess and Rodrigo Obregon.

The film is almost half a musical as well, with a lot of great anthems sung by an actual bard on the screen (Clive Riche), which is a very original aspect in "Jonathan of the Bears". Castellari also experiments with unique camera angles, the sequences with the bears are deeply impressive, and really a lot of people spectacularly fall dead in the mud. Awesome, awesome film...shamefully undervalued!