earlcarlson6 Ever since I saw The Good, The Bad and The Ugly I have loved spaghetti westerns. This movie doesn't seem to have the budget or the actors as the aforementioned movie, but it's got loads of grit! There are some great scenes (pulling the coffin and fight scenes) as well as some savage dialogue from the anti hero. If you're in the mood for a gritty old school spaghetti western then look no further.

Fella_shibby This Spaghetti Western is yet another take on Kurosawas Yojimbo but the performance by Nero and the non-stop violence makes this a worthy film. Directed by Sergio Corbucci (The Great Silence, The White the Yellow and the Black, Navajo Joe). Corbuccis direction in Django is both artful and brilliant along with the screen writing. Franco Nero (Enter the Ninja, Die Hard 2, Camelot). is the only actor to capture the true and powerful emotion of Django. There's the action, there is a fist-fight, a gunfight, or some random act of sadism. The ear scene was violent. (Quentin Tarantino paid homage to this in Reservoir Dog). The fist smashing scenes. The movie was indeed violent for its time. The films graveyard shootout finale is very bleak n different. Cinematography by Enzo Barboni (The Five Man Army, A Long Ride from Hell, he directed Trinity Is STILL My Name, They Call Me Trinity). Edited by Nino Baragli (Once Upon a Time in America, Caligula, Salò, Once Upon a Time in the West, The Good, the Bad and the ugly). Music by Luis Enriquez Bacalov (The Gospel According to St. Matthew, Il Postino aka the postman). One of the best films of the genre to have not been directed by Sergio Leone. Full of more interesting and stylish scenes of action. More than thirty sequels to Django have been produced since 1966. Most of these films have nothing to do with Corbuccis original film.

utgard14 A man dragging around a coffin arrives in a muddy border town where he rescues a woman and becomes involved in a struggle between rival groups. Sergio Corbucci's version of A Fistful of Dollars (or Yojimbo, if you prefer), Django stands as one of the better second tier spaghetti westerns. Stylish and violent with nice direction from Corbucci and a good score form Luis Bacalov, including the catchy title song. Franco Nero is a handsome lead but he lacks the screen presence of a Clint Eastwood. He's also badly dubbed with a disconnected voice that doesn't remotely seem like it could come from him (because the unimposing voice belongs to Tony Russel). To make matters worse, Django talks a lot for a "mysterious stranger" type. Despite my complaint about Django's distracting voice, as well as some script gremlins I won't bother getting into, it's still an enjoyable movie. I love spaghetti westerns for their style and fresh approach to a genre that had largely grown stale by the time films like these were made. Some of them, like the ones made by Sergio Leone, were exceptional films that stood with (and sometimes above) the best American westerns. Others, like Django, were simply entertaining time-passers with some memorable elements but not much meat on the bone. Nothing wrong with that. This is a good, but not great, spaghetti western that will please die-hard fans of the subgenre but those seeking something more like Leone's work will likely be disappointed.

Robert W. I know that Sergio Leone didn't necessarily create the Spaghetti Western but he certainly could be considered the King of the Genre. Django reeks of everything you would expect from a Leone film. If you love Leone's Westerns then you will at least enjoy Django. Many reviewers will tell you that this is on par or even better than the Dollars Trilogy (I completely disagree.) Certainly, it holds its own but if this were made nowadays people would cry foul and say how obviously blatantly copied this is from Leone's work. The brooding, dark stranger, the cunning but slimy Mexican bad guy, the warring factions...so on and so forth. I think the only reason I don't think this holds up to the Dollars films is that the characters and performances were very stiff in this. A few reviewers also said that Franco Nero was no Eastwood and as a HUGE Eastwood fan I can tell you that that is VERY true. He has the brooding part down but he doesn't have any chemistry on screen. He just doesn't handle the anti-hero role quite well enough. Feels strange saying that since the film is a cult Western classic that spawned multiple sequels and iterations so obviously something was done right.Franco Nero certainly looks heroic. He is tall and dark and has those piercing blue eyes. He guns his way through the bad guys with ease. He just didn't stun me. He didn't show the type of charisma that I am used to in Westerns like the aforementioned Eastwood or Van Cleef. José Bódalo is decent in his role but as expected the role is incredibly cookie cutter. Given the genre of film, that is to be expected. He does decently though and his scenes with Nero are well done. If Loredana Nusciak has a point as Maria...is she a romantic interest, the damsel in distress...I don't know if she pulls it off. She constantly looks like a deer in headlights and shows absolutely no acting ability in her role. There is no chemistry between her and Nero and when she does belt out a scream or line, it seems cheesy. Ángel Álvarez was particularly fun as the bartender. He was sort of the sidekick and sort of the comic relief and I would have liked to have seen more from him. Eduardo Fajardo fulfilled the villain position decently. I don't think the script gave him a lot to work with but he is a decent Western villain.Sergio Corbucci obviously enjoyed the Spaghetti Western genre enough to try his hand at it. It succeeds in many ways. It isn't missing anything that a fan would need. Although described as violent I didn't think it was nearly as violent as any of Sergio Leone's films. It has a few over the top moments but certainly nothing that would make anyone cringe. Well the film hits mostly the right notes, everything also feels a little dry, a little uninspired, and without true creativity. I'm actually surprised that it has such cult status and such a high review on here. Its not a bad film, its just not a unique Western. When you have such superior film making in Sergio Leone, this one feels like a sub standard clone. 6/10