Il mio West

Beginning with his first line of dialogue, one hopes that the main character (Leonardo Pieraccioni) will get shot. The kid is tedious. Keitel can't do anything with the script (and you can't blame him for not really trying). I don't understand the complaints about Bowie ... he's cliché, and the accent is horrid, but his scenes are the only ones offering any semblance of entertainment.

But it's the dialogue, story, and main actor that kill the film. The main characted give his lines in English, but has clearly been dubbed by a native speaker (unfortunately, not an actor). To call the result "wooden" would give ply-wood a bad name. Attempts to reclassify it as a some sort of intentionally pastiche cult comedy are wishful thinking. Not that the film doesn't inspire a degree of laughter ...

If you would enjoy seeing some of the formula characters and scenes in a western presented in new ways, you might like this. Some of these formulas are treated with quietly humorous disrespect, be warned, if you take westerns seriously. Think of a good "Gunsmoke" episode made as a movie for the level of plot depth. People were real, involved, and creatively presented. The dialog limps at times, but Keitel's personal presence compensates for some of the limitations. Scenes weren't always smoothly connected, some had a "plot requirement" feel but I do wonder what ended up on the cutting room floor. People wore dirty clothes, gunshots produced blood, town citizens were parochial and short-sighted, the basics I need to stay involved. Bowie is appropriately evil, and does sensible evil things to achieve his goals!

This spaghetti-western is worth watching only because of one thing. O.K., maybe two: the stars of the project are Harvey Keitel and David Bowie. During the first half of the movie we're dealing with some strange combination of a cowboy story, comedy (not very bright, I must say) and... family movie. Well, it's boring and it reminded me of TV series called, yes, yes , "Dr, Quinn". Something interesting starts to happen when Bowie gets on the stage, but for his appearance we have to wait for a fifty minutes (fifty three, to be more specific). If you're a fan of the "rock'n'roll chameleon", you'll see this one anyway. In case you don't admire the gentleman, you should forget about "Il mio west" - it's the kind of a flick that makes you think: why the hell someone decided to film this?

One wonders if this film was actually directed by a single human being with a creative thought process. The spectacular Tuscan mountain region doubles nicely for the big sky country of America, providing the only genuine energy in this moribund production. It feels as if the screenplay was generated by some sort of computer after being fed with the essential plot points of the Hollywood western. The film lurches along awkwardly, trying not to miss any of the preprogrammed beats. It's rather a grubby combination of far far better films such as "Shane", "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance", "The Shootist", "High Noon" or even that evergreen, "The Angel and the Badman". "The Gunslinger's Revenge" even throws in some "Dances With Wolves" moments among the local population of amazingly genial and chipper Native Americans. Presumably the computer weighed the variables and inserted a solid percentage of egalitarianism.

The performances -- if one could call them that -- of the actors are at the very best uniformly bland. One would hope this can be attributed to the script which relies on every Western gunfighter cliché ever produced and handcuffs the actors to characters without any range or depth.

And speaking of Lee Marvin's brilliant performance as the vile, mentally unhinged Liberty Valance...

What cinematic genius suggested that David Bowie try the ghastly pseudo-Southern dialect as the mentally unbalanced gunfighter who tracks Keitel to his hometown? One could blame the computer again. It sorted through the data and decided in lieu of being able to dress Bowie as former Nazi officer (always a quick way to establish a character as a freelance sadist), they would opt for a Confederate officer instead. Of course, it all makes perfect sense -- just like the rest of this appalling film.

Aging gunfighter Harvey Kietel returns to his family after twenty years, to find his wife dead and his only son a pacifist doctor. He's soon followed by degenerate hick David Bowie, who wants his chance to best Kietel and won't take "No" for an answer.

The first half of this tender-hearted, politically correct Italian western (the first in awhile) is pretty syrupy, but alright as long as you're not expecting a rip-roaring spaghetti western. Harvey Kietel is as excellent as always and the location photography pretty good.

Things get weird in the second half, when a scenery-chewing Bowie and his motley crew arrive to begin a vigil outside Kietel's house. Here he's quite amusing, talking with the same fake southern accent he used for his cameo appearance in Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me and even getting a chance to strum his guitar and sing, that is until he bashes it over the head of another character.

I couldn't help but like it.