Wanted

It seems you can't go wrong with a Giuliano Gemma movie. This western, like all of the others I have seen him in, is a fine example of the spaghetti western genre.

It has a great score with a haunting title track that recurs at several points in the film. The score leaves no doubt that you are watching a eurowestern from the late 60's, and to me that is a very good thing.

The action scenes are very well done, and they really draw you in. I especially enjoyed the first one, in which Gemma's character and two deputies are in a wagon hauling gold, and they have to fend off an army of about 100 bandits.

This is a very compelling story that holds your interest from start to finish. I highly recommend this film to anyone who enjoys a good spaghetti western.

Although "Wanted" is not a classic of its genre - the spaghetti western - it does provide enough good stuff to be a perfectly good example. For starters, there is a good gritty feeling here. There is some good background scenery, for starters. A lot of the movie was obviously filmed during the winter, and the cold, mud, and visible breath of the actors gets to your bones. Actor Giuliano Gemma makes for a good hero, one that you'll hope gets to clear his name by the end. In fact, there are some tense moments that will make you wonder if indeed he'll be able to. And if you are looking for action, this spaghetti western delivers it in spades - lots of gun battles and fist fights are on display.

This is not a perfect spaghetti western. For starters, it's oddly paced. It takes over a half an hour for the protagonist to find himself in his dangerous predicament. And at one hundred minutes in length, the movie is overlong; it could have been cut by ten to fifteen minutes. But if you are a spaghetti western fan like myself, the positive attributes of the movie more than make up for its shortcomings.

After proving himself quite resourceful during an attempted robbery of a gold shipment, newly appointed sheriff Giuliano Gemma finds himself framed for murder by ruthless cattle-rustlers that want someone a little more friendly in his place. Escaping jail, he fights the rustlers and the new sheriff to clear his name.

Wanted is pretty straight-forward and unpretentious and star Gemma is one of the great spaghetti western stars. There's also some good pulp-western atmosphere, with none of the silly humor and gimmicks that seemed to take over the genre in the years following this one's release.

On the other hand, there really isn't anything new here this time around and although it's decent enough entertainment, it's ultimately not very memorable.

In spite of what my fellow commenter states this is a fabulous Euro Western film by visionary director Giorgio Ferroni, who endows what might be an otherwise routine Oater about organized cattle rustling into a unique genre pastiche. Giuliano Gemma is well suited to the role of the lawman wrongly fingered for a crime he didn't commit seeking justice south of the border amongst the heavily made up extra actors who look about as authentic as Mexican peasants as the Little Rascals would.

What makes the film work is Ferroni's visual prowess, combining sound stage footage with location work (some of which looks like Yugoslavia or maybe France) and a profound grasp of how to use color to make visual compositions that just happen to represent a cowboy movie. This one isn't quite a "Spaghetti Western", with a plot-heavy story rather than the usual posturing and exaggerated artiness of a Leone or Corbucci film. There are very few closeups of people's shoes, and the action sequences are more or less straightforward. The movie existed on the page before being visually realized.

And for that reason I find it interesting; there is a surrealist bent going on here creating realities that are more "real" than a John Ford movie. What the movie may be lacking in terms of authenticity or visual flair is more than compensated for by a deliberate sense of composition. The movie looks like a storyboarded cartoon or graphic novel rather than a sprawling, dusty film epic, and the attention to character & set detail is refreshing. Here is a movie that fretted over the way every frame would look in a very painterly manner that will delight hardcore fans of the genre, but with restrained enough violence to recommend this for viewers of all ages. And how often can you say that about a Spaghetti Western?

7/10

Giuliano Gemma was par excellence the action film Italian actor.He had plenty of go and French users do remember his part of Nicolas Calembredaine in the "Angélique" saga;but he was also featured in peplums ("I Titani"), exotic adventures ("Sheherazade") and mainly spaghetti westerns,often credited as Montgomery Wood;he became more ambitious in the seventies with such works as Comencini's "Delitto D'Amore" and Zurlini 's "Il Deserto Dei Tartari" .

But a character actor he is not;he is better at other things and he is pretty good (and credible) as a sheriff;the villain is successfully portrayed by French Serge Marquand.The subject is borrowed from too many American westerns of the two precedent decades ,but it's made with care,with a good cinematography using the wide screen tastefully .The screenwriters display a good sense of humor: the priest,scaring the dumb Mexicans (it may pass for racism ) with Jehovah's wrath which will strike them if they don't repent.The blacksmith's trick is really a good idea the cattle thieves could take up.And the "wanted" word ,sung every ten minutes when the hero becomes the wrong man ,is typically European.

This is an action-packed movie,with never a dull moment;it does not mark a milestone in western history,but it's good Entertainment.