Joe l'implacabile

Anyone expecting another grim, operatic Italian revenge oater can skip Dynamite Joe. Rik van Nutter is an Eastwood lookalike from a few angles and Antonio Margheriti plays that up in the first few minutes before Joe goes back to a Robert Conrad/Wild Wild West style hero who's a specialist with explosives. van Nutter does an all around good job as a womanizing, easygoing troubleshooter. Hired to transport a gold shipment, Joe sets off huge explosions, romances two pretty girls, tangles with Mexican bandits and crooked American politicians. The cinematography is good, the music by Savina fits the tone of this wacky film and the action is fine, especially a stage coach Chase. There have been comedy westerns alla Italianni before such as Any Gun Can Play and straight westerns with some humor in spots but Dynamite Joe is total silly tongue in cheek slapstick which probably accounts for the heavy criticism.

DYNAMITE JOE is a cheerful spaghetti western directed by the one and only Antonio Margheriti, who shoots with his typical aplomb: he brings a lightness of touch to the proceedings and fills his film with plenty of action too. Despite this, DYNAMITE JOE feels like a rather superficial movie, lacking in the kind of depth that makes a spaghetti western classic.

The film features Rik Van Nutter as the peroxide blond hero, a Bond-style protagonist who has something of a passion for explosives. The plot involves the transportation of a shipment of gold through enemy territory, and the enemies faced along the way; a number of rich businessmen turn out to be unsurprisingly corrupt, and Van Nutter has his work cut out dealing with them.

Unsurprisingly this is an effects film for the most part, with plenty of explosive action and even a few of Margheriti's infamous miniatures in a flood disaster scene. However, it's not very funny, and Van Nutter's hero is more than a little irritating. It's not a film I'd hurry to watch again, put it like that.

In order to put an end to the numerous ambushes on the gold transports which are a real menace to the finances of the American government, the agent Joe Ford, called Dynamite Joe due to his liking for explosives, is entrusted with controlling the next transfer.

Dynamite Joe starts with a bang when Dynamite Joe (Rik Van Nutter) appears and at first you'll be forgiven to think that this is a Sergio Leone' Dollar film knockoff as Van Nutter, who strangely resembles Clint Eastwood, is dressed in a poncho, but soon you will realise it's further from that. It's a thoroughly tongue-in-cheek western, a romp, an antithesis to the grim, nihilistic spaghetti westerns, and reminds me of the TV show Wild Wild West. An exploding watch, an exploding leather bag, an exploding derringer, an exploding Stagecoach, a bandit who takes his throne with him wherever he goes, gold-Stagecoach painted red, male guards dressed as women but they have beards , and beautiful women vying for a cool hero who hardly blinks an eye during the mayhem. Definitely an outrageous romp with Bondian traits. It's an absolute blast- fun western all the way. It has some good action, too. Rik Van Nutter makes one cool hero and is winking at the audience. Pity there weren't sequels to this.

What I will say in this one's defence is that it felt a little different for a spaghetti western. The tone was completely at odds for what we have come to expect from these types of films, with a central character who doesn't have deadly gun skills but instead is a dab hand with a stick of dynamite! Despite (or maybe because of) these distinctive characteristics, Dynamite Joe is a mediocre-to-poor western. It's essentially about a government agent who is tasked with protecting a gold shipment from bandits. His weapon of choice is, needless to say, explosives.

This one was helmed by jack-of-all-trades director Antonio Margheriti, who made films in many different genres. He does solid enough work here but the material is just a bit too tedious for its own good. The star actor is a guy with the spectacularly silly name of Rik Van Nutter. Seemingly he was the guy who played Felix in the early James Bond movies, although I would never have known if I hadn't read it here on IMDb. Overall, this is a film that certainly doesn't take itself very seriously but at the same time it isn't very good either.

"Dynamite Joe" is a fairly obscure spaghetti western, rarely seen in the U.S., probably because there are no American actors in it. It's a lot more light-hearted than a lot of Italian westerns, but it doesn't work too well as either a comedy or a western. Rick Von Nutter stars as "special agent" Joe Ford, better known as Dynamite Joe. The character (and the film) seem to be influenced by both the James Bond phenomena, heavy in the 60's, and the TV show "Wild Wild West."

Joe's hired by the government to get a gold shipment safely through dangerous territory and past a group of "comancheros." He manages to do this when a wagon is made from the gold. (Yeah . . . that's believable!) Along the way we're told Joe has "an obsession with the letter G: gold, girls, and gunpowder!" The audience is also treated to (or tortured by) a couple of songs by a saloon girl (who looks a lot like Annette Funicello).

There is the usual -- for spaghetti westerns -- backstabbing and corruption of supposedly noble characters, and a number of mostly predictable twists in the plot. And then there's director Margheriti's famous work with miniatures during a sensational flood sequence. And as usual, the special effects in the sequence alternate from spectacular to dreadful, often within seconds.

In short, "Dynamite Joe" is watchable, but is far from the apex of Italian westerns. And Rick Von Nutter just walks through the title role on what I presume is supposed to be his charm. (Note to Rick: It ain't happenin', dude!)