Les impitoyables

The votes seem rather low for this; my guess is that those voting aren't familiar with (or fans of) westerns from the 1960's / 1970's. As they go, this one isn't bad at all.

Lee Van Cleef was excellent; Leif Garrett went from underplaying to overplaying in some scenes, but that was probably what the director was wanting. Jack Palance was the surprise to me; he is usually the epitome of a villain. Here, I thought that the menace was a bit overdone to the point of being lost.

My vote was 5, could have been better, but is quite watchable.

The spaghetti western is/was a very specific genre, and by the standards of the day, they were a huge departure. The first several - A Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More, The Good The Bad and The Ugly, Once Upon a Time in the West, to name a few - all in the unique hands of director Sergio Leone - are classics. Those that came after - including this one, Diamante Lobo (God's Gun) - not so much. The problem starts with the script, which leaves a lot to be desired. In Leone's films, he realized that he was working with a lot of actors for whom, however good they might or might not be, English was not their first language, if in fact they even spoke it at all. So he wisely devised an approach that required very little dialogue, depending mainly on action, atmosphere, style and - yes, violence. A lot of it. In Leone's hands, this combination spoke volumes. When it came to Gianfranco Parolini (aka Fred Kramer), the magic touch just wasn't there. For Diamante Lobo/God's Gun, the script was just awful - clichéd situations, cheesy dialogue, bad continuity. This saddled some of Hollywood's most reliable actors with a difficult assignment - making a silk purse out of a sow's ear. To a great extent, they were constrained by the director, and they fell back, as actors will, on their shtick, to get them through. For some (Sybil Danning, Jack Palance, Leif Garrett), it worked better than others (Lee Van Cleef, Richard Boone). For Van Cleef, the spaghetti western was familiar territory. But playing sort of against type in such familiar surroundings - good an actor as he was - just doesn't ring quite true. Boone, in one of his last films and probably already in poor health, in addition to being miscast, was just plain disappointing. Palance chews up the scenery, as he was wont to do in many films before and after - too broad, and yet it worked. Garrett, one of Hollywood's most promising young actors at the time, hit most of the right notes. Danning - well, she didn't have much to do, but she handled it quite well. The production values were inadequate. The town looked very well turned out for a dusty old stage stop. The post production just made things worse - bad dubbing, in some cases laughable voice replacement, second-rate scoring, editing that worked against the script (although perhaps in spite of it - who knows?). In short, there was a film in there somewhere, but it didn't have a chance to show itself. Two final thoughts: Although Van Cleef was a veteran of the genre, he wasn't the best choice for role(s). Leif Garrett was quite good when allowed to be. Too many reviewers just hate on child actors as a matter of course. And quite a few deserve it. They may be cute, but they are not good. But some are genuinely talented. Garrett was among them until the music thing overtook him. One can only wonder what might have happened had he not gone the teen idol path. As an actor, he sure had the chops.

Released in 1976-77, "God's Gun" is a Matzo Ball Western about a preacher (Lee Van Cleef) who chases down a band of outlaws (led by Jack Palance) to apprehend a murderer. After the thugs get revenge the preacher's spiritual son (Leif Garrett) teams-up with the one person who can set things aright. Sybil Danning co-stars as a saloon girl and Richard Boone has a minor role.

This Hebraic Western is stylized with a Spaghetti flavor, but is badly executed. I could never get a grip on the tone the filmmakers were shooting for. Is it semi-camp? Semi-parody? It's obviously not something to take too seriously, but sometimes the viewer's evidently supposed to. Since you can't take the story seriously it prevents you from caring about the events of the story and thus it's boring.

Thankfully, there are some highlights. For one, it was shot in Israel, which is unique for a Western. Secondly, there are a few stunning women, including Sybil Danning when she was around 23 and an uncredited saloon babe named Jessie. Thirdly, it's got Jack Palance and Lee Van Cleef; two Western icons. And, fourthly, Leif Garrett is surprisingly good at around 13 years-old.

But the confused tone and relative dullness do it in.

The film runs 94 minutes.

GRADE: Borderline D+/C- (3.5/10 Stars)

I bought this DVD for $3 in a bargain bin. I was expecting a horrid movie with an outside shot at "so bad it's funny", but was pleasantly surprised by it.

The plot was actually OK. The idea was good and there were a couple of interesting twists. On the bad side, the movie was poorly made, the style was completely ripped off from the spaghetti westerns, and some of the acting was terrible. Still worth a viewing, though.

I give it a 8/10 for plot, 5/10 for acting and dialogue, and 3/10 for production values. Because the plot is the most important thing (are you listening George Lucas?), I give it an overall rating of 6/10.

I don't suppose many Westerns were made in Israel, but this seems to be the most famous. It looks like they've gone for the 'Spaghetti Western' look rather than the conventional and so should appeal to those who like those movies. Well....if they can get past the terrible direction, wonky camera-work, and Leif Garrett's acting.

Van Cleef plays a preacher(looking like Satan) who is gunned down in cold blood by Palance's vicious gang. Garrett, who witnesses the event is struck dumb and heads off to Mexico to find Van Cleef's twin brother, a top gunman who vowed to his brother he would never kill with a gun again. Van Cleef heads back to avenge his brother's death, but tries to do so in a manner that doesn't involve shooting them all.

There's clearly a good Western here, but it's lost beneath the ineptitude of the film makers. That said, Van Cleef's twin performance is excellent, and Palance hams(pun not intended) it up like only he can. 5/10