Arrivano Django e Sartana... è la fine

The Italians sure made a lot of westerns featuring the characters Django and Sartana. They didn't usually feature in the same film mind you, although I have seen at least one or two others where this pair do share screen-time. It was clearly a marketing ploy really, as the characterisations on offer are so vague that they could effectively go out under any names but I guess 'Buck and Hank Take the Town' was a title that just didn't cut the mustard. Needless to say in this reincarnation our there is no attempt whatsoever to have our friend Django drag a coffin around with him and both gun-men are no more than standard spaghetti loners with highly developed weapons skills. The story has bandits abduct a girl after massacring all others in a ranch. Django and Sartana are soon on the case and set out to rescue her and administer a bit of a pasting to the nefarious good-for-nothing bounders.

The synopsis, and above paragraph in general, should hopefully make it clear that there is absolutely nothing in this movie that stands out from the crowd at all. Its highly generic fare which will offer no surprises to anyone who has seen a number of Italian westerns. Having said that, it's not precisely a bad example of the sub-genre either and I thought it did go about its business in an efficient and entertaining enough manner. But, at the same time, it was undeniably pretty forgettable stuff and one which was definitely no better than a time-filler.

After Sergio Corbucci's masterpiece "Django" from 1966, a whole series of so called "Django" films were released in Italy. Some of these (unofficial) sequels were quite good, some were worse, but none of them even near the original. The original "Sartana" films with Gianni Garko also spawned a bunch of rip-offs, some of them quite good, some worse. As a great fan of the Italian Western, I must say that, out of all films I've seen carrying either title "Django And Sartana...Showdown In The West" is the worst. The storyline is quite primitive, a gang of criminals take a girl hostage before they wanna flee to Mexico and then, for some reason, instead of going to Mexico they wait, and try to kill the area's two deadliest bounty hunters, Django and Sartana, before they can find them. The dialogue is pretty poor too, at least in the German dubbed version of the movie.

The characters of Django and Sartana are not even near to those in the original movies, Django, originally a cynical avenger, is a bounty hunter in this, and Sartana, usually a typical antihero looking mainly for quick cash, is suddenly somewhat of a saint, helping the poor and trying to turn the west into a better place by fighting the bad guys. This movie is aguably only watchable to my fellow fans of the genre, and they're also quite likely to be disappointed. If for anything, watch the film for Spaghetti Western veteran Gordon Mitchell, who plays the villain in this, and who saves the movie from being total garbage. If you don't know any other "Django" or "Sartana" movies, please don't judge the whole series after this movie, don't even waste your time with this one, but watch Sergio Corbucci's original "Django" of 1966 with Franco Nero (it's a masterpiece!!) or any of the great Sartana movies with Gianni Garko instead. Only watchable for Spaghetti Western enthusiasts like myself, and even then it is anything but recommendable.

If you don't like Spaghetti's, don't watch EM'. Man I tell ya... He made 12 or so. Directed also. You either like em; or you don't. Clowns come in here with their Ed Wood garbage. I have watched this Italian Western countless times because I am a FAN of Spaghetti Western FLICKS. If you will...People who do not prefer this GENRE or just don't really have any business to be in here to do a critique on the subject, constantly put down these movies. This is one of the better ones. If you don't like it, move on. It's got 5 or so cool actors in it, not just KLAUS KINSKI for 2 seconds, Excellent MIDDLE tier SPAGHETTI. So tired of the under 30's in here who don't know if their ass is punched or bored....

Psychotic bandit Gordon Mitchell and his gang kidnaps a girl and head for Mexico. Django and Sartana take their time, eventually getting around to confronting the kidnappers and attempting to rescue girl.

Directed by Dick Spitfire (AKA Miles Deem AKA Demofilo Fidani), this is marginally better than his subsequent Django/Sartana match-up, One Damned Day At Dawn..., though that's not really saying much. The story is paper-thin, with lots of pointless scenes and elongated shots meant to bring the film to an acceptable length.

However, it's visually pleasing, with decent production values and good photography by Aristide Massachessi (AKA Joe D'Amato). There is one goof though, about seventeen minutes into the movie, when Django walks up to a moist dirt patch covered in automobile tracks! Look fast for a couple of plastic cacti as well.

"Django & Sartana" is probably the worst Spaghetti western I've seen thus far, but maybe just because of that it also provided a lot of fun and laughs. I honestly don't think it was writer/director Demofilo Fidano's deliberate choice to deliver such a bad film, which makes it all the more sad for him but all the better for us, because bad movies with good intentions are even more entertaining and hilarious. Don't feel too sorry for Mr. Fidano, by the way, because he made over twenty flicks like this and that earned him the questionable nickname "The Ed Wood of Spaghetti Westerns". Basically the concept of this dud describes itself somewhat as an avant-garde "Freddy Vs. Jason". "Django" was a hugely popular franchise started by Sergio Corbucci's classic in 1966, and it promptly skyrocketed the international career of Franco Nero. Even though the film only has one official sequel, the name Django was put on practically every Italian western film poster ever since. "Sartana" is an almost equally popular franchise with approximately twenty titles in total and the character has been played by eminent Euro-cult actors like William Berger, George Hilton and Fabio Testi. With this film, Demofilo Fidano had the brilliant idea of shooting something that featured both characters, but unfortunately his script is just too atrocious and certainly doesn't glorify any of the two principal characters. I doubt Fidano has even seen any of the other Django/Sartana movies, because their styles and personalities are completely different. Besides, even though the English titles state "showdown" and "Django against Sartana", there isn't any fight or confrontation between them at all. Quite the contrary, in fact. Both men are in pursuit of Burt Keller's gang of thieves and murders. They kidnapped a beautiful buxom blond and plan to flee to Mexico. Instead of actually doing that, the gang hangs around and patiently await for Django and Sartana to kill them. So, they kidnap a girl to assure a safe getaway, but then they stay to fight the unbeatable bounty hunters. That's how stupid the scenario is! Due to the imbecilic and simplistic plot, Demofilo Fidano does everything possible to stretch the running time. This means that nearly half of the film exist of tedious footage of various random people riding their horses and cameras zooming in on people's face even though the actual scene is already over for like 5 seconds. There even are some downright shameless padding sequences as well, like an entire game of poker in a saloon. The body count is enormous and the gunfights are exactly what makes this film so darn hilarious! The victims don't just boringly drop dead when shot here! They fly limply through the air, jump over fences, roll numerous times over the ground and some of them even make a looping! All this and more is illustrated alternately in slow-motion and regular speed and I haven't got a single idea why! The lead actors depicting Django and Sartana are pretty worthless. Django looks like he's made of plastic and Sartana actually doesn't look any older than adolescent. The girls are yummy enough and the absolute main asset of the film is the magnificent Gordon Mitchell in his role as the deranged criminal leader Burt Keller. He's an ego-maniacal lunatic who plays poker against himself in a mirror … and cheats!