Compañeros

With a dream cast of Franco Nero (as Swedish mercenary Yod Peterson aka "penguin") and Tomas Milian (Mexican rebel Vasco), a soundtrack by Ennio Morricone and Sergio Corbucci at the Directors helm, this film was always likely to deliver. And it delivers 100%.

The story centres around the town of San Bernardino, and a fight for power between General Mongo (Bodalo) and Professor Xantos (Fernando Rey). Xantos, a pacifist with a young and dedicated following, has been imprisoned at Fort Yuma by the Americans. His absence has left the town, and its safe, at the mercy of Mongo. However, without the combination for the lock, he is unable to access the wealth of the town.

Mongo enlists the help of Peterson to rescue Xantos, for both the combination code and probable execution. Vascos is sent to accompany him, having already suffered much humiliation as a result of an earlier confrontation with the Swede. This makes for a very uneasy relationship.

A brief fracas with Xantos' followers at a hold-up on a train enables Peterson to escape from Vacos' close watch. However, he is soon relying on his companion to rescue him, after he is captured by a former partner John (Jack Palance) - who he had previously betrayed some years ago to save his own skin. This betrayal had resulted in John being nailed to a tree, and relying on his faithful pet falcon, Marsha, to rescue him by biting off his hand. Not surprisingly, John holds a grudge (as well as a wooden hand!).

On escaping John's grasp, the two make an assault on Fort Yuma in an attempt to free Xantos from the Americans. As the adventure really heats up, they're paths will soon cross with the American army, General Mongo, Xantos' followers and, of course, John and Marsha.

The first third of the film is perhaps a little slow and episodic, but does successfully reveal the characters of Peterson and Vasco to the viewer (with fantastic character play by Nero and Milian respectively). Once the background is established, the film soon explodes into action with a series of exciting and highly effective chases and battle sequences. Corbucci at his best.

Probably the strongest element of this movie however is its subtle use of humour. Much of this is provided by the chemistry between the two leading roles, but the laughs really reach a crescendo with Peterson and Vasco's final liaison with Jack's falcon Marsha. Just one great scene in a film full of them.

It is no doubt a crime to have got so far into my review without mentioning Jack Palance's performance in much detail, because his performance as the unhinged, marijuana smoking John is scene stealing. Quite possibly one of the greatest villains of all the Spaghetti Westerns I have seen.

Music is provided by Morricone, and as always the score is a perfect accompaniment to the action - both memorable and rousing. In fact it always amazes me how the man could be so consistent! In summary, this is a must view film from the ever reliable Corbucci. And my mouth waters at the prospect of watching his other Mexican revolutionary movies ('A Professional Gun' and 'What Am I Doing in the Middle of a Revolution')..... very shortly, hopefully!

A great time-capsule of the kinds of mildly subversive escapism you could enjoy at the movies, back in 1970. Revolution was in the air, and (Cuban-born) Tomas Milian adds the necessary Castro/Che/Bob Dylan charisma as a peasant turned freedom fighter. Franco Nero is the super cool James Bond-like foreign agent. The two form a wary partnership to rescue the Professor (Fernando Rey) from the clutches of various bad guys, including Jack Palance at his twitchy best playing a cartoonish psycho, who feeds his beloved hawk the flesh of the peasants. A seriously attractive radicalized woman leads up her own gang of rebels. More a Mel Brooks, or Mad Magazine, spoof than a serious political tract, this Italian Western nonetheless has a lot of style, and much to recommend it. Morricone's music is like his Leone scores, but in comic overdrive...and satisfying. There's much inventive (mild/comedic) cruelty: Franco Nero maintaining his cool while buried up to his head and threatened by horses' hooves is both disturbing and very, very funny. And, director/writer Corbucci riffs expertly on Spaghetti Western conventions. You get the pleasure of a director who knows his genre, and knows that you do, too.

Get ready for a run-on... A Spaghetti Western set in the Mexican Revolution about a foreign mercenary played by Franco Nero who makes an uneasy alliance with a Mexican bandito who unwittingly becomes a revolutionary while simultaneously falling in love with a freedom-fighter chick who is really hot, all while being tracked by an eccentric villain played by Jack Palance...directed by Sergio Corbucci, with a score by Ennio Morricone and a few machine gun massacres and at least one scene where someone is buried up to his neck while horses are about to trample on his head. Ummm...haven't I seen this before? Oh yeah, it was called "The Mercenary" and stands as one of the best Spaghetti Westerns of all time. "Companeros", on the other hand, is an entertaining piece chock full of humor and action (although, like the two protagonists, the alliance between humor and action is not always a smooth one). The pacing could use some work and there wasn't enough nudity (ok, I'm joking on the last one...could have used more nudity though)

Where was I? Oh yeah, "Companeros" is bad-ass fun with one of the greatest shootouts of all time (Nero + Machine Gun = Bad-assery at its best). Wow, what a terrible review.

In times of revolution in Mexico, the ignorant Vasco (Tomas Milian) is promoted by the corrupt General Mongo (Francisco Bódalo) to lead his men in the invasion to San Bernardino. Meanwhile the arms trader Yolaf "Swedish" Peterson (Franco Nero) arrives in the village to deal with Mongo; however the money to buy the weapons is locked in a bank safe. The only man that knows the combination to open the safe that was not murdered by Mongo's men is the pacifist Professor Xantos (Fernando Rey) that is prisoner in Fort Yuma in the United States. Swedish offers to release Xantos but the suspicious Mongo asks Vasco to go with Yolaf. The twosome is chased by the followers of Xantos led by the beautiful Lola (Iris Berben) that want to convince the duo to join the revolution; and by the mercenary John (Jack Palance) that lost one of his hands in a betrayal of Yolaf to save his life and uses his smart hawk Marsha to get Xantos to deal with Mongo.

"Vamos a Matar, Compañeros" is a funny spaghetti-western of Sergio Corbutti that has a story very similar to Sergio Leone's "Duck, You Sucker" of 1971 and plays with "Blood for a Silver Dollar". Franco Nero, Tomas Milian and Jack Palance are hilarious, and I laughed a lot with the scene when Marsha becomes a toasted barbecue. The music of Ennio Morricone is excellent, as usual. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "Compañeros"

Vamos a Matar Companeros! is an authentic, made in Italy, Spaghetti Western film classic and is a must see movie for anyone who wants to discover the very best of the Spaghetti Western film genre. This Western-Comedy film was directed by Sergio Corbucci, the number #2 Italian director of all time for Spaghetti Westerns, after of course Sergio Leone, for the entire Spaghetti Western genre, which is saying a lot because there were hundreds of films in that genre alone! This film is just plain fun and entertaining to watch! All the actors are charismatic, comical and professional. The all star cast in the film are Jack Palance, Franco Nero and Thomas Milian. The story is basically about the Mexican Revolution of 1910 where a mercenary (Nero) and rebels, lead by rebel leader (Milian), must rescue a idealist professor to lead the revolution who is held hostage in Texas. This film was made during the height of student protests to the Vietnam War in the late 1960's and early 1970's which may explain the political theme. There are many good scenes, too many to list here, but the best scenes and most surreal, in my opinion, are the ones with the pet falcon and the strange one wooden-handed and marijuana smoking villain (Palance).

The cinematography is beautifully filmed by cinematographer Alejandro Ulloa who also filmed other excellent Spaghetti Westerns. The music in the film is by the maestro of Spaghetti Western music and film music in general, Italian composer Ennio Morricone. Companeros includes a theme song and the beautiful classic acoustic and twangy electric guitar riffs invented by Morricone.