ma-cortes This is a violent and gory western packed with thrills , noisy action , riding pursuits , shootouts and a real vendetta . It deals with a sheriff , Sean Kilpatrick (Richard Harris) , who heads Southwest of the border to get his pound of flesh from the bandits led by Brand (Rod Taylor , when Sam Fuller was going to direct, he wanted Terence Stamp for the role) and hoodlums (Neville Brand , William Smith , Paul Benjamin) , all of them slew his family in a bank robbery . Across his chase into Mexico , Sean is challenged by an upright Mexican Sheriff (Al Lettieri) and things go wrong . Exciting western that displays an extreme battle of wits and strong story about a merciless vengeance among some spiteful characters . Being based on a story written by the great Samuel Fuller titled ¨Riata¨ and with an interesting screenplay by the prestigious Lukas Heller who also wrote ¨Dirty Dozen¨, ¨Monty Walsh¨ , ¨Too late the hero¨ , ¨What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?¨ and ¨Flight of the Phoenix¨ . Duo protagonist is frankly well , as Richard Harris and Rod Taylor , both of whom give excellent acting . Support cast is awesome such as Neville Brand , William Smith , Al Lettieri , Isela Vega , Paul Benjamin , William Bryant , Pedro Armendariz , among others . The picture is pretty well but it might have been more bearable if Samuel Fuller had not been bumped from the director chair as it is , he and other contributors refused to be listed in the credits . Furthermore , it is full of atmospheric musical score by Fred Steiner . And an evocative and colorful cinematography by Gabriel Torres . The motion picture was professionally directed by Barry Shear , though it has some flaws and gaps . Barry took the filmmaking from uncredited Sam Fuller who was replaced as director at an early stage . Shear directed some nice films , such as ¨Across 110th Street¨ and ¨Wild in the streets¨ and a lot of TV episodes . Rating : 6 , acceptable and passable western

Robert J. Maxwell I can't understand why these American outlaw gangs always gallop into Mexico to find safety and succor. They always wind up getting caught anyway. And before they come to their just end they must suffer through the Aztec Two Step. However, the story is from Sam Pekinpah who had this thing for Mexico.Rod Taylor, as the leader of this gang of four, doesn't seem to realize this. He and the gang hold up a bank and then get trapped in a Texas town. They're all snarling in the school house or someplace, surrounded by a hundred townsmen pointing rifles in their direction. Peaceful Sheriff Richard Harris tries to sweet talk them into giving up. Like hell! Taylor is pure e-vil. He emerges from the building holding a pistol to the head of a tow-haired young boy who happens to be Harris's son. The accommodating Harris orders his men to throw down their guns, allowing Taylor and the rest to high tail it out of town, with the boy on Taylor's saddle. Harris's wife screams and tries to drag her son from the horse but Taylor shoots her dead. Then the boy topples from the saddle and is stomped to death by twelve hooves as the animals race over his fallen body. Harris is stunned, his face frozen with grief. Then he straps on his gun belt and slips a rifle into its sheath.This sets the whole plot in motion, similar in some ways to "The Bravados" with Gregory Peck as Adrasteia. I won't bother to spell it out in any detail because it's a long movie and sometimes complicated. But with Harris in pursuit the gang crosses the Rio Grande and more or less slaughters its way through a couple of Mexican villages, sparing no one. Harris manages to catch up from time to time and winnow down the numbers but his efforts are hampered by Al Lettieri as a Mexican police officer who believes in the law. Harris's sheriff, after all, has no business in another country and revenge killings are illegal, so we are led to understand.It's a colorful movie and full of action, so it's an enjoyable divertimento. The location shooting in Morelos, Mexico, is very nicely done. Make you want to take your holiday there. And the performances aren't bad either. Curious to see Al Lettieri as a force for good instead of evil, although with his bushy mustachio and scowling features he still looks like a for for evil. Rod Taylor could go either way. His face is plumped out with age and he has a full mustache and scraggly beard so that from certain angles he resembles Robin Williams. Harris has that ugly, manly face that some Irishmen have and he hits his marks. He was excellent in the little-seen "The Field" and he seemed to give acting lessons to the other actors in "Gladiator." The plot throws away any credibility it had towards the end. We've gotten to know Rod Taylor's murdering thief. He takes nothing seriously. He watches from a distance while Harris sets about trying to butcher a gang member that's been left behind, and he jokes about it and makes bets on who will win. Then we have to swallow and digest his sudden impulse to visit his little daughter in a Mexican convent. He smiles, tries to hold her close. "You know your ol' Daddy, don't ya?" The tears run down his face, also the viewer's.

Chase_Witherspoon With a soundtrack lifted straight off "The Wild Bunch" and a premise from any number of superior films (not just westerns), "The Deadly Trackers" is nothing more than a shameless plagiarism. Solid cast is wasted in stereotypical roles, only Al Lettieri breaks the mould as a sympathetic policeman on the trail of Harris, a former lawman taking revenge on those who murdered his family.Taylor is the key villain, sadistic and for all intents and purposes, effective in his role. His ragtag crew including Brand, Smith and Benjamin are less convincing, with Smith (a cult favourite) flexing his muscles for one bloody fist fight before a premature exit. The movie basically lurches from one bloody encounter to the next, as Harris exacts merciless revenge, in turn pursued by Lettieri intent on taking him alive in the name of justice.The contrast from his pre-family massacre pacifist (to the extent that guns are prohibited in his town), to that of total maniac who bludgeons his victims to bloodied pulp, is aimed at conveying the message that even the most gentle soul can turn feral under the most intense desperation. Just in case you fail to pick up on that message, there's a plethora of fatal beatings and progressively more sadistic retaliations to underline the point, culminating in a face-off between Harris and Taylor at an orphanage where they compete for wildest animal honours.It's been written that Harris threw a lot of weight in the making of this picture, and it does have the appearance of being a one-man-stand, built around Harris from every angle in every frame. If only some of that attention had been dedicated to the script and plot, the outcome could have been much more rewarding. As it is, "The Deadly Trackers" is a pointless orgy of violence, a less than impressive vehicle in which to showcase the least of Harris' acting range. Uninspiring.

Clarke-2 This is one of those films that lovers of the Western genre ought to rent on video. They will discover a treasure of the past that is well worth a watch. Like most Westerns, this film is set in the 1870s American southwest. The story of vengence is common in Western films, and this particular tale is extremely brutal. The post civil war Southwest was a violent place full of vigilantism and crime. Men of the West with morals and a sense of social responsibility always served as easy prey for bushwackers.The Deadly Trackers is focused on two men who share an over-developed sense of justice. They are both sheriffs, and they both embraced the importance of the law. One of the sheriffs loses his family, however, and his ideals die with them. The best part of this film is the relationship that builds between the two sheriffs as they hunt a small band of bushwackers. Richard Harris's character is the embittered sheriff bent on vengence. His character sinks into being as cruel and violent as the men he hunts. The Mexican sheriff, who lacks personal loss, maintains an ideal sense of keeping law and order. In the end, Harris's character regains his values for upholding the law only to see justice slip out of his grasp. The Mexican sheriff remains constant in his efforts to enforce the law only to provide for a lack of justice. The result is a dark tale about the nature of mankind on the frontier.