Bom Funeral, Amigos... Paga Sartana

This entertaining installment in the 'Sartana' series suffers from some bad pacing and not nearly enough action to sustain my ADD-addled brain. However, the action it does have is wonderfully realized...including an expertly handled horse chase where the bad guys all find their way to their graves (you'll see what I mean). The plot has to do with a land dispute between Sartana, some lady and a Chinese saloon owner...but who gives a sh!t? Unfortunately, the director thinks we do because he spends an unholy amount of time on plot when we just want to see Sartana shoot people. The Chinese dude's constant quoting of Confucius gets old fast (and is it me or do most Chinese people in Spaghettis quote Confucius?). Slightly recommended.

Sartana is part of a series and is not meant to be on the level of Eastwood films. It does not have to be. All though there are 5 official films in this series 4 of then star Gianni Garko. This is the third one. Sartana does nothing more except want money money and more money. He can shoot and scheme is way out of anything. The throwing of cards is a wonderful idea if one really understands spaghetti westerns. The score by bruno nicolai is incredible, it is one of his finest scores. The gunplay is awesome. That is the idea, Sartana is not supposed to get hurt. He is somewhat of a mystical figure, and this particular film has more humor than the ones in the rest of the series. I highly recommend it. Other titles in the sartana/series are I AM SARTANA YOUR ANGEL OF DEATH LIGHT THE FUSE SARTANA IS COMING and the first one IF YOU MEET SARTANA PRAY FOR YOUR DEATH.

Gianna Garko returns as Sartana in the fourth film in the series and its standard stuff; there's some good shootouts, a suspenseful scene in the mine and the cute Miss Giordono, however I didn't find this as engaging as the others and I felt the scenes were tacked on together. The story elements were more baffling than usual. Garko isn't as engaging as he was in the 2nd Sartana film. But it passes the time well enough, but it doesn't stand out too much.

Here, I would like to refer to some artistic categories that are paid less attention to. First of all, I would like to praise the artistic contribution of the decorator, especially the clothing designer (Daphne Ciarrocchi, Luciano Sagoni) for the protagonists in the film, the set designer on the interior look (Giacomo Calo, Carducci), the director of photography (Stelvio Massi).

The music is at the level of Bruno Nicolai.

Director Giuliano Carnimeo, screenwriter and coauthor of the story Giovanni Simonelli with Robert Gianviti did a good job of introducing the character of Li Tse Tung / Peng. An unusual character. Otherwise the owner of the casino, of Chinese origin. The role of Li Tse Tung / Peng was convincingly played by George Wang.

On the whole, with the character of the murderous Sartana (Gianni Garko) and his deadly handling of cards, it seemed a very impressive innovation. From an aesthetic point of view, it is a successful, acceptably stylized spaghetti western, which makes it above-averagely watchable.

Gianni Garko is back as Sartana, and this time he's sporting a thick blonde Swedish- style moustache! I'm also beginning to think he's some sort of jinx, as yet again he witnesses the massacre of a bunch of miners by some bad guys and gets mixed up in some sort of land grab treachery involving crooked bank managers we've all seen a million times by now.

But who cares? It's Sartana, and it seems the longer the series goes on, the more ridiculous (and therefore enjoyable) the films get! He's still dressing in goth fashion and he still has his four chambered Derringer, but this time round he's also got a pack of cards with sharpened edges! You tell me if a film is meant to be taken seriously when Sartana flicks a card across a room into a bible, at the exact page he wants the bad guy to read!

The crooked bank manager (and his many crooked employees) is pretty good too, sending wave after wave of hired killers after Sartana, only for Sartana to waste them, then pay for their funeral, only for the bad guys to use that funeral to try and kill Sartana. Sartana also acts like some sort of ghost in this one, seemingly teleporting anywhere he wants to, which just adds to the strangeness. Plus he can light fireworks by firing a gun at them, at night.

No Mexicans in the one strangely, but we do have George Wang as some mystic casino owner who spends the entire film in a chair only to reveal he's not crippled, he's 'just very lazy'.

I might have to track down Sartana The Gravedigger, Light the Fuse...Sartana is Coming and any other I've missed.