La rossa ombra di Riata

An opening scene is one that will make the anti-gun group proud. The sheriff (a sober Richard Harris) explains that guns beget guns, etc. But when a group of super-nasties kill his school marm wife, and young son, it's a whole different story.

It's vengeance time and the next hour or so has to do with the sheriff on a one-man quest to find the head baddie (Rod Taylor relishing the role) and the chase takes us into Mexico and a small village where, usually, nothing much happens.

What happens in this flick is brutality piled on brutality, and violence up the ying-yang. Look at someone cross-eyed and you've had it mister.

There is the requisite prostitute with the requisite heart of gold and, by the way, some of the best acting comes from her little girl who was fathered by Taylor. She really looks scared --- well, you know the phrase.

So, the story is standard stuff, but it will hold your attention. The scenery is neat, the 'borrowed' music is neat and, for you lovers of violence, this is heaven on film although, to be honest, it is not as gross as you may have expected, since the films of Fuller are 'full-er' violence.

The moral to the story? Revenge is not always sweet. Would the Lone Ranger have done it this way?

Samuel Fuller wrote this unusual western novel which is aptly directed by Barry Shear. It relates the story of a small town Sheriff, Sean Kilpatrick (Richard Harris) who hates guns and abhors violence. That is until a gang of ruthless but murderous bank robbing killers enters his village. Led by a clever, but unscrupulous murderer named Frank Brand (surprisingly played by Rod Taylor, who typically plays good guys) arrives to rob the bank but is quickly surrounded and easily captured. Nevertheless, Brand and his cut-throats escape. but not before shooting and killing innocents in the process. Filled with rage and vengeance, Kilpatrick set out to bring the killers to justice despite their crossing to Mexico. The group of criminals and law enforcement officers are made up of serious actors who typically play opposite sides of the law and include, Al Lettieri as a Mexican Constable (Excellent role), Neville Brand and William Smith, (supurb characters) as part of Brand's gang. The great, rugged Mexican outdoors and spacious landscapes are majestic and add to the bloodstained journey. Indeed, it's further enhanced with the violence and exciting action. An unusual treat for Taylor fans and an equally surprising role for the entire cast. Recommended to any who seeks a violent page torn from our wild Western Lore. ****

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 one of those films that lovers of the Western genre ought to rent on video. They will discover a treasure of the past that is well worth a watch. Like most Westerns, this film is set in the 1870s American southwest. The story of vengence is common in Western films, and this particular tale is extremely brutal. The post civil war Southwest was a violent place full of vigilantism and crime. Men of the West with morals and a sense of social responsibility always served as easy prey for bushwackers.

The Deadly Trackers is focused on two men who share an over-developed sense of justice. They are both sheriffs, and they both embraced the importance of the law. One of the sheriffs loses his family, however, and his ideals die with them. The best part of this film is the relationship that builds between the two sheriffs as they hunt a small band of bushwackers. Richard Harris's character is the embittered sheriff bent on vengence. His character sinks into being as cruel and violent as the men he hunts. The Mexican sheriff, who lacks personal loss, maintains an ideal sense of keeping law and order. In the end, Harris's character regains his values for upholding the law only to see justice slip out of his grasp. The Mexican sheriff remains constant in his efforts to enforce the law only to provide for a lack of justice. The result is a dark tale about the nature of mankind on the frontier.

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.