Les impitoyables

A preacher (Lee Van Cleef) is gunned down by a cutthroat gang (leading Jack Palance) . The son (Leif Garret) of a Saloon girl (Sybil Danning) is looking for the priest's brother , an ex-gunfighter (again Van Cleef) . The gunman seeks vengeance on the evil men who murdered him . Lee Van Cleef is better in the two first films from ¨Sabata¨ trilogy directed by Frank Kramer or Gianfranco Parolini , (the third was starred by Yul Brynner) than here . These movies are enjoyable , full of gadgets , imagination , with enough budget and produced by Alberto Grimaldi (successful producer of Sergio Leone's Dollars trilogy) , here the producers are Menahem Golan and Yoran Globus (Cannon Productions) but in short budget and being middlingly directed by Gianfranco Parolini or Frank Kramer.

The picture displays action , gun-play , showdown , and drama but badly narrated ; besides , being in minimum budget and wasted casting . The movie has an awful cinematography and disappointing musical score . Jack Palance (recently deceased) as the exaggerated band leader is overacting , as usual , he plays a megalomaniac nasty in an overdone as well as excessive interpretation . There appears Cody Palance , Jack Palance's son (he had another daughter actress named Holly Palance , too) , unhappily , he early died . Richard Boone is underestimated in a minor role , in spite of getting a long career in classic Westerns . The teen singer Leif Garret as a dumb adolescent is mediocre , he played with Lee Van Cleef another spaghetti Western in similar style : ¨Kid vengeance¨ , being his maxim feat the acting as secondary in ¨Outsiders¨ (by Francis Ford Coppola) , later his career really failed . The motion picture was appallingly directed by Gianfranco Parolini who used the pseudonym of Frank Kramer . He began directing muscle-men epics as ¨Rocha¨, ¨The Macabeos¨ with Brad Harris and ¨The ten gladiators¨ with Dan Davis and Gianni Rizzo , Parolini's usual actor . After that , he continued with ¨commissioner X¨ series with Tony Kendall , fantastic genre with ¨Three supermen¨ and warlike movie as ¨5 per l'Inferno¨ with Gianni Garco (Sartana) and Nick Jordan . His first Western was ¨Johnny West¨ and later on , he directed the ¨Sabata trilogy¨ . Rating : Frustating , far fetching and uninspired Western .

The indescribably poor DVD-quality almost ruined the entire movie for me. "God's Gun" is part of a Three-Pack DVD of Lee Van Cleef spaghetti western films, the other two being "Kid Vengeance" and "Death Rides a Horse". The box looks nice and it's a great initiative to release more of Van Cleef's work on DVD, but the picture and sound quality are terribly, terribly poor! The colors are faded and most of the time you can't even make out the eyes or the expressions on the characters' faces. It's far worse than a VHS which stood on the bottom shelf of a videostore for the past 20 years, so watch out in case you consider purchasing this puppy on DVD. The film itself is fine, and I don't really understand all the harsh and negative comments by the other reviewers. The plot isn't exactly original and the film clearly lacks the touch of a professional genre director like Leone or Corbucci, but as long as you're simply expecting to see macho cowboys wiping each other out with pistols and shotguns, you can't possibly be disappointed. Any western that combines the talents and charisma of Lee Van Cleef and Jack Palance is worth tracking down if you ask me, and even more so if it also contains guest appearances by Richard Boone and Sybil Danning. Van Cleef plays the priest of a peaceful little town that suddenly gets invaded by a sadistic gang of criminals led by Jack Palance. The priest is killed when he tries to uphold justice in the little town, but his youthful acolyte escapes and seeks the help of twin-brother Lewis who lives in Mexico. Together they return to avenge Father John's dead and clear the town of crime once and for all. The script of "God's Gun" is very clichéd and contains too many stupid improbabilities. For example, Johnny finds Lewis in less than two days even though he only knew he lived "somewhere in Mexico" and – moreover – he can't even ask for directions because he's struck mute. For some reason, there are also two totally redundant and overlong flashback sequences that don't add anything to the story. Naturally, the cast of characters are dreadful stereotypes, including the drunkard Sheriff and the gorgeous, voluptuous wenches in the local saloon. The music and many of the inventive camera angles are directly stolen from "The Good, The Bad and The Ugly". Oh well, at least the gunfights are violent & nasty, and Jack Palance is the ultimately cool baddie.

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)

The strangest thing of all about this terrible western is that while it has the look feel and especially the SOUND (loud, overdone) of a spaghetti western, most of the talent involved in the top positions were not European, including the director. Also, the three male leads did not sound right. The lead Lee van Cleef, sounded like himself most of the time , but Jack Palance and Richard Boone were dubbed. This is especially clear with Richard Boone who has a very distinctive voice. If someone out there can tell me why you would dub a distinctive sounding American actor's voice into English, please tell me. I liked the plot twist of the twin brother but this is a bad movie. Enough said!

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