Kid Vengeance

Young Leif Garrett watches helplessly while his parents are murdered and his sister taken by a savage band of grimy cutthroats led by Van Cleef, who looks like a hippie with full facial growth, earring, long hair, and headband (probably holding the hair extensions in place), and Robert Morley. (best remembered for waking up next to a horse head in The Godfather)

Garrett tracks the bandits and begins to slay them one by one before teaming up with gold miner Jim Brown to finish them off.

Not a spaghetti western, this was an Isreali production made in Isreal by Golan-Globus, who did a better job (Van Cleef too) with God's Gun.

Most people agree that Lee Van Cleef's career in westerns ended with a whimper, but I thought it was okay. Too bad that in the following twelve years nobody got him back in the saddle with a six-shooter. It would have been great having seen Lee Van Cleef on a horse in the action packed eighties.

I know nothing of Lief Garrett's modern day goings on, but I'll tell you this: he can sure pick a grim film to star in! Not only was he great in Devil Times Five (aka Peopletoys), he's also good in this, as a kid out to get revenge on the low down scum who killed his parents! The leader of this gang? Lee Van Cleef, all bald and knife-brandishing.

Garrett fairly works his way through the evil gang, using snakes, scorpions, nooses, rocks and arrows in what amounts to almost a slasher-like Western. I didn't even think he needed the help of Jim Brown, but when Big Jim starts throwing dynamite at everyone, you're kind of signing up a winner right there! Big Jim also brings along his band of brothers he's been fighting with, just to complicate things up a bit.

This is your typical dark late-era Spaghetti Western, violent and pretty unrelenting, with a fairly high body count. Made in Isreal so I guess the term 'Spaghetti' might not be appropriate.

Seek this one out if you are looking for a different kind of Lee Van Cleef "spaghetti-type western". Definitely on a par with his lesser westerns like "Death Rides a Horse", but inferior to "The Big Gundown", this revenge story has quite a few unusual aspects. The surviving massacred family member is a young boy, who proves quite resourceful in his vendetta against Van Cleef and his gang. Lee is definitely not a sympathetic character, and his evil presence is perhaps only surpassed by "Angel Eyes" in "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly". The quality of the DVD is inferior, with the sound badly out of sync. Nevertheless, I enjoyed this unique "pseudo-spaghetti western". - MERK

KID VENGEANCE (2 outta 5 stars) Cheaply-made and poorly-directed piece of western fluff starring Lee Van Cleef as one of the most vile villains he's ever played. This was during his later years when he was getting a bit long in the tooth to believably play those nasty, tough guy parts... but he is still the most interesting thing in this movie. He leads a bunch of bandits who rape and kill the mom and dad of young Leif Garrett and then kidnap his sister. Leif goes after them with "vengeance" on his mind. He begins to pick off the bandits one by one, using some pretty unconventional means (bow and arrow, rocks, scorpions, the old snake-in-the-saddlebag trick). He eventually teams up with a gold prospector (Jim Brown) whose life savings have been stolen by these men as well. The film starts off looking like a bad TV-movie... but once the raping and killing starts it becomes obvious that this was no "Movie Of The Week". You might be interested enough to sit through it once but this is no classic by any means.

I have to grit my teeth (grit-grit) when I read the putdown of this movie. Sure, it is another vengeance adventure and, sure, there are goings-on that have gone on before, but the sum total is - it is some picture, and I mean that in a positive way.

The opening scene with the Easter bunny - well, I saw this on Maundy Thursday - was too realistic, as was the rape of the mother, viewed by the audience at a distance, but by her son as a close-up. He also witnessed the killing of his father, a combination that demanded, yes, demanded, retribution.

Said youngster was ex-heartthrob Leif Garrett who was excellent in a role that put him on screen most of the time. Lee Van Cleef was on the screen for a short period of time and was his usual brooding s.o.b. self. He was an expert.

His gang of heartless bad guys, and there was a gang of them, were, as they were supposed to be, totally obnoxious.

The other star, of course, was ex-footballer, Jim Brown (no stranger to westerns) doing a very fine job as the mad, brooding hero of the piece.

"Kid Vengeance" - no kidding - is a western - an Israeli western yet -- oy vay - that will keep your attention from beginning to end. Don't - er - passover (yuk-yuk) this one. And, fie (ancient Roman for foo, or fooey) to those who dismiss this item.