The Good, The Bad and the Ugly – Movie Review
- Directed by Sergio Leone.
- Written by Luciano Vincenzoni, Sergio Leone, Agenore Incrocci, Furio Scarpelli.
- Starring Clint Eastwood, Eli Wallach, Lee Van Cleef.
There are two kinds of people in the world: those who’ve seen The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, and those who should see it. Until recently, I found myself in the second category. I think the main reason I’ve waited so long before watching this classic piece of cinema was my total lack of interest for the western genre. I’ve always found them stupid, boring and slightly racist (noble cowboys fighting evil Indians). But a couple of months ago I saw Once upon a time in America, a masterpiece by Italian director Sergio Leone. I suddenly became very interested in watching some of his other films and so turning to The Good, the Bad and the Ugly was only natural.
The film is set, as the title suggests, around three main characters. The Good (Clint Eastwood), referred to as Blondie, is a bounty hunter trying to make a few bucks here and there. Tuco (the Ugly) is a local outlaw with a price on his head. Blondie and Tuco team up and start scamming nearby villages. Blondie hands him over to the authorities, obtains the reward money and then sets him free just as he’s about to be hanged in public. But when Blondie decides to end their partnership by abandoning Tuco out in the wild, things start to get a little out of control as he goes crazy seeking revenge. The third protagonist, interpreted by Lee Van Cleef, is Angel Eyes (the Bad). Angel Eyes is searching for a man named Bill Carson, the only person who knows the whereabouts of a hidden treasure ($200 000 in gold).The only problem is that he happens to be a member of the Confederate Army and has been dispatched to fight the war against the North. Meanwhile, Tuco finds Blondie and forces him to cross an immense desert, on foot, without any water. After a couple hours of this inhumane treatment, both men stumble upon a dying soldier who turns out to be Carson. Tuco couldn’t care less about the situation of the poor man but Bill Carson promises to reveal the location of his gold in exchange for water, even mentioning the name of the cemetery where the treasure is buried. Tuco hurries back to his supplies to get the water but Bill is in too severe a state and perishes only managing to tell Blondie the name of the grave (of which he ignores the cemetery). Incapable of trusting one another, our two mercenaries keep their individual secrets and co-operate in order to retrieve the bounty.
I’m going to get this out of the way right now. Apart from the 3 main actors, the entirety of the cast is composed of Italian and Spanish actors all speaking in their native language. As a result, the movie was dubbed in English, and very poorly so. Seriously, there aren’t enough words in the English language to explain how horrific the voice acting and lip-syncing are. It is, for the most part, utterly ridiculous, and the only complain I have about the film.
Now I can focus on the good part of the movie, which is basically everything else.
Yes the plot is simple, but simple is good, I like simple. In the era of convoluted storylines it’s refreshing to watch a film that doesn’t fill your head with nonsensical and pretentious bullshit. The first ten minutes of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly contains virtually no dialogue, and yet these scenes hold more information about the characters than in most of the other films I’ve seen. As for the characters, they seem easy to define at first (the title of the movie obviously helping in this task) but sometimes react in ways that are different and unexpected, notably the scene where Tuco meets his brother making it one of the most powerful moments.
If you take every aspect of the movie individually, you’ll find that every one of them is of very high standard. The cinematography, the direction, the action, the dialogue, the music (arguably the best score ever written), the production value are all fantastic but I think that what makes the movie even more enjoyable is that all these individual components are masterfully woven together and work incredibly well as a whole.
I would recommend this to everyone. If you have not seen this movie you’re missing out on one of the all time greats. It’s the kind of film that transcends genres, cultures or generations, it’s a remarkable work of art that thoroughly deservers its reputation.
The Good, The Bad and the Ugly is available to purchase from Amazon.com
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Interesting that you got into this via “Once Upon A Time In America”, as I think that’s a lesser work compared to this.
I disagree about the dubbing; while it’s not up to modern standards, they did a fine job. Check out the featurette on the Special Edition DVD about the English dub, a lot of effort went into it.
If you have the chance, check out “A Fistful of Dollars” and “For A Few Dollars More”; it makes the scene where Blondie is standing in front of Tuco after finding his poncho a lot more powerful
My favourite thing about this though is the cynical, gallows humour. What happens after Blondie admonishes Tuco after all the times he’s saved his life is hilarious
Very glad that you discovered this.
I love this film, if you’re uninitiated into (good) westerns I personally reccomend Eastwood’s ‘Unforgiven’ or the Peckinpah masterpiece ‘The Wild Bunch’, many others count ‘Once Upon a Time in the West’ as one of the best of all time but I haven’t seen it and as such can’t comment.
I also have to reccomend ‘Rio Bravo’, John Wayne wears a white hat and the bad guy wears a black hat, and the lead female character is frankly laughable in places, but it’s a classic for a goddamn good reason – it’s bloody brilliant.