Le Bon, la Brute et le Truand

I wasn't sure if I was going to comment on this film because everything has already been said by the hundreds of other people who have posted their thoughts, but I decided that I should really put my two cents in since this is my favorite movie.

This film, in my opinion, is not only the greatest spaghetti western of all time. It is the greatest movie of all time. Period. Regardless of genre. I could probably watch it every day, and be perfectly happy doing so.

The music is perfection. The way the music drives this movie is absolutely amazing. The musical genius of Morricone and the incredible direction of Sergio Leone is a combination that will probably never be equaled. The theme song will forever be etched in your brain. In fact, it probably already is, even if you haven't seen the movie! The scene where Tuco runs through the graveyard with the song "Ecstacy of Gold" is pure poetry. And the showdown at the end with that great music- just incredible.

The story is riveting. There is not a single dull moment. The movie is long, but Leone's direction is so good that you will love the fact that you can enjoy this movie for three hours.

Lee Van Cleef is my favorite spaghetti western actor, and he is incredible as "Angel Eyes." It is the part he was born to play. Eli Wallach is perfect as Tuco. He really shines in this movie. Some people say he steals the show, and I can see why they think so. Eastwood is excellent as "Blondie," although I don't think Eastwood has as strong of a presence as Van Cleef (I know many will disagree, and that's OK because all three actors are superb in this film so why split hairs?).

This movie is hypnotic. It's operatic. It's sad. It's funny. It's gritty. It's violent. It's art. It's action. It's pure entertainment. The film is just so incredible on so many different levels that EVERYONE should see it, regardless of what kinds of movies they are into. And it's so cool that the greatest flick ever just happens to be a spaghetti western. If you haven't seen this movie, stop what you are doing, and go get it now!!

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly or the Good, the Better and the Best, as I prefer calling it, is a bizarrely sublime and a uniquely aesthetic masterpiece. The actors in title roles have given such extraordinarily superb performances, that it would be impertinent and disparaging to merely regard their swell work as acting. In fact their brilliant portrayals have immortalized Blondie, Sentenza/ Angel Eyes and the enigmatic Tuco. Lee Van Cleef is fiendishly unforgiving as the merciless Angel Eyes. Clint Eastwood is rugged yet suave, cocky yet adorable as laconic cigar-smoker Blondie, a role that laid the foundations of his illustrious career. But it is Eli Wallach, who steals the show with his captivating portrayal of Tuco, a portrayal that is as entrancing as it is enlightening. Wallach is amusing, capricious, nonchalant, uncanny and yet tenacious as Tuco, perturbed by his insecurities and dampened by his solitude. It is the tacit amicability between Blondie and Tuco and their mutual hostility towards the evil Angel Eyes owing to the vestiges of virtue present in them, redolent of their moribund morality, which gives the story, the impetus and the characters, a screen presence that is not only awe inspiring but also unparalleled.

Sergio Leone's magnificent and ingenious direction in synergy with Ennio Morricone's surreal music, Tonino Delli Colli's breathtaking cinematography and Joe D'Augustine's punctilious editing makes the movie, a treat to watch and ineffably unforgettable. Initially aimed to be a tongue-in-cheek satire on run-of-the-mill westerns, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, continues to stand the test of time in its endeavor to attain apotheosis (if it hasn't attained it yet). It will always be remembered as European cinema's greatest lagniappe, not only to the Western genre, but to the world of cinema.

It's a must watch for any movie lover. 10/10

On a partial first viewing, I didn't like "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly." I thought it was a slow, tedious story about a bunch of unpleasant jerk characters involved in a bog-standard conflict over money. It all seemed very macho and self-consciously cool, and it had obviously inspired all the overrated macho directors I don't like in my own generation - Tarantino, for example, and Robert Rodriguez. In short, I was unimpressed.

Years later, I gave the film a second shot, watching it all the way through this time. I loved it. What had changed?

For one thing, I took more notice of the technical side of the film. I paid attention to Leone's famous use of close-ups, his selection of memorable character actors, and his wonderful scene-setting. I admired the detailed sets and the sweeping landscapes, the props and the costumes and all those weird, wonderful faces that Leone clearly loved to photograph.

I also got hooked by some of the quieter moments that I had skipped over in my first viewing. One of the most effective scenes involves Eli Wallach's character, Tuco, quarreling with his brother when they meet after they've been apart for years. Their argument is great, emotionally charged stuff, made all the more effective by the suggestion that they really do love and care about each other. It's the kind of sensitive, human scene you never get to see in a Tarantino or Rodriguez movie.

Before I get too fuzzy-wuzzy, I should also like to point out that, on my second viewing, I LOVED all the action, too. Every gunfight is great, in its own way, and they're all a bit different. The greatest of them all is, of course, the final confrontation between the trio, which is accompanied by some of the most rousing music I've ever heard in a film. And hey, there's even a huge Civil War battle to provide a change of pace from all the small-scale action.

Ultimately, "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly" is probably just a potboiler of a film, without too much to say about, for example, the human condition. But what a potboiler! It doesn't have to try to be cool - it simply IS cool. In fact, it probably defined heroic coolness for an entire generation. Eli Wallach's performance, Leone's direction and Morricone's music alone are enough to elevate it to classic status - and the fact that everything else in the movie is great, too, helps elevate it to the level of perhaps the greatest action film ever made.

And to think, I missed all that the first time through...

Sergio Leone always wanted every picture he made to be, in every way, bigger than the one which preceded it. With the Good, the Bad and the Ugly he continued his upward trajectory and rounded off his dollars trilogy in style.

This picture was Leone's most stylised and grandiose to date, and brought all the themes and styles he had been developing in his earliest films to perfection. Among the most notable was his characterisation, particularly his all-important introductions of characters. Look at the introductory scenes of the three leads. We first see Tuco bursting out of a window, obviously interrupted in the middle of a meal, and straight away we get his freeze-frame and the title "the ugly" – this is a simple character, and needs no further introduction. Angeleyes appears out of the distance, but grows towards us until his face fills the screen. We see him commit two despicable acts of murder and treachery before we get his freeze-frame and title "the bad", telling us he is pure evil. Finally, in Blondie's first appearance he steps into the frame from behind the camera, as if he had always been there. He rescues Tuco, but only for his own profit. It's not until we have seen him betray and abandon Tuco that we get his freeze-frame and title "the good" – obviously a fairly ironic label given the way he has just acted.

Leone's trademark long drawn out face-offs – exaggerated versions of the shootouts of John Ford westerns and the sword duels of Kurosawa's samurai films – are also brought to a peak here. Not only are they now taken to absurd heights of stylisation, they are also spread out and adapted to cover the whole picture, until the point where even two men sitting opposite each other eating a meal and glancing suspiciously at one another is treated like another stand off. In fact, the entire film can be considered one long series of duels.

We also see more of the importance Leone attaches to church and family. The Dollars trilogy could be thought to lack emotion, taking place as it does in a world where there are no morals and everyone is out for gold. However the Good, the Bad and the Ugly contains several moments of poignancy, perhaps the most prominent of which is when Tuco confronts his estranged priest brother.

Religious iconography and references crops up time and again. Leone loved biblical epics almost as much as he loved westerns, and there is something of the feel of those pictures here in the overwhelming landscapes and eerie, choral music. On top of this the central trio can be read as an allegory for God, the Devil and humanity. This arguably presents rather a cynical view of the Catholic faith – given the treacherous and chequered nature of the "good" – but it could be argued to be a typically Italian one. In a country in which the church is so omnipresent and universally accepted, it's sometimes said that God is cursed as much as loved. Having said that, this was clearly never intended as the central theme – Leone wasn't trying to make some grand statement here – it's simply part of the mix of ideas going on in this picture.

This brings me onto the war theme. Anti-war sentiments are not directly addressed in this picture, but the way the civil war is woven into the plot makes a powerful statement. For the first half hour we don't see that the war is going on. The central characters aren't concerned with the it – they are only interested in hunting down the gold. However the war encroaches on the plot more and more often, until it moves from background to foreground and takes over the entire picture, culminating in a colossal battle scene. And of course the fact that the film ends in a huge military graveyard is also very significant.

I've spent so long talking about the themes and ideas going on in this film I've nearly run out of space to talk about all the genius that has gone into making it so enjoyable. The dialogue is superb, often funny and plenty of it quotable. Technically Leone has perfected his art – he composes a shot like John Ford, edits like Eisenstein, paces like Kurosawa, but all with a degree of his own originality. There is brilliant acting – Eli Wallach steals it as Tuco, probably his best ever performance. It's funny how Lee Van Cleef was cast as a villain here. Van Cleef's early career mostly involved playing mean-looking gang members, but as Leone discovered when casting him as the hero in For a Few Dollars More, while his face said "bad guy" his voice and manner could be warm and likable. The good guy Van Cleef obviously proved more popular, as in the dozen or so other spaghetti westerns he made for other directors he was invariably cast as the hero.

Just time for a final word on the recent (2003) restored edition. While it's great that several lost scenes have been added, I have to say that very few of them were entirely necessary. The only one of the added scenes I really like is the one in which Angeleyes visits the field hospital – it keeps his story arc going, and also shows an act of compassion from the "bad" when he lets the soldier keep the bottle. However the new dubbing for these scenes, strange as it may seem considering today's technology, is mixed absolutely atrociously. On top of this, Clint Eastwood and Eli Wallach are now so elderly, they actually sound less convincing than the guy impersonating the late Lee Van Cleef. As a result the restored segments stick out like sore thumbs, and break up the flow of what is in every other way a perfect motion picture.

Gosh, The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, I finally saw this film! Who hasn't heard of it? First off, may I say that Clint Eastwood... what a hottie in his day! :D Sorry, had to get that off my chest. Sergio Leone from what I understood was a huge western film fanatic and in the 60's pretty much most folks had moved onto other genre's. I mean, I would agree that most western's are pretty much the same and stereotypical.

Sergio however took a story and added some elements to it such as comedy, drama, and war. The story flows so well and just compliments all of it's characters. By far my favorite character was The Good, played by Clint. He is a bounty hunter who captures The Ugly numerous times just to free him before every hanging and splits the winnings with him. When they learn of a coffin in the desert that has $200,000, they go for it. Of course we have the Bad who is a ruthless killer who also wants in on the doe.

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly is a terrific film and I thank all the IMDb users for their useful comments and that pushed me to finally rent this western classic. Let's give it up for Sergio!

10/10