Director: Enzo G. Castellari
Year: 1976
Country: Italy
Alternate Titles: Keoma: The Avenger
Genre: Spaghetti Western
Plot:
Returning to his hometown, an ex-Union gunfighter sees that a group of thugs have taken over the area and employing a series of racist tactics to keep them in line when not abusing them for having contracted the plague. Determined to help them, he rescues one of the survivors and returns to a local town to help treat her only to discover his half-brothers are in league with a racist Confederate general who's holding the town in a grip of panic and fear, resulting in him being forced to relive the treatment they inflicted upon him growing up. Forced to defend her from his brothers' antics, he takes on the gang to run them out of town once and for all.
Review:
Overall, this was a stellar and enjoyable Spaghetti Western. As is usual in this case, the film scores it's best work with the amount of stellar action featuring plenty of strong performers. The idea of being the strong, silent gunfighter who has a sense of justice and springs into action when needed is the perfect type of character for these stories and we get a strong idea of his talents and skills at the very beginning with his rescue of the girl from the camp and then dealing with the thugs in the cantina offer up glimpses of his personality quite easily. As well, the final half where we get the entire raid on the town and the series of brawls and fistfights that run through the great final battle that takes place in the ruins of the town featuring some great gun-battles and hand-to-hand weaponry brought into this. Even with the inclusion of the brutal torture featured here is quite fun for how they treat him leading to the final confrontation, and overall there's a lot to like here with this aspect.
Another rather enjoyable factor here is the fine atmosphere present in this town. The dirty, mud-entrenched town when we first arrive showcases the absolutely dire situation present there in the area where it's almost on the brink of extinction with almost nothing left alive. Suitably aping the environment is the personnel there with the release of the plague in the village which renders them just as dirty and malformed as the debris-filled ruins of the town, effectively creating a wholly unified feel. That's added to the other enjoyable aspect here with the outright enjoyable sense of respect shown here for humanity in that respect, shown by the tender relationship with the plague-riddled prostitute, the urging of the drunkard that he used to look up to as a kid and the general atmosphere of the soldiers taking on their father on the opposite of their ruthless boss that keeps offsetting the deadly atmosphere of the rest of the town. This is a stellar addition to the film and really works nicely to hold this up over it's few minor points.
Where the film struggles is in the reasoning for including the characters' racial backstory which turns this into more of a troublesome watch than expected. Filled with historically accurate but no less challenging material here, the fact that this is all setup to merely serve as overblown fodder for something we've already been exposed to, and none of the flashbacks detailing the brothers' treatment of him is merely reinforcing a plotpoint we're intimately familiar with leaving the entire situation to be as repeatedly hammered into the viewer makes no sense. That becomes even more important with the revelation in the finale where they falsify the situation for their own good in order to provide another villain in the piece to overcome when they take over the town and force their old racist ways upon everyone. Even that has little emotional resonance with the full revenge being undertaken while silent except for the soundtrack, rendering a lot of the scene emotionally blank. Otherwise, there's not a whole lot to really dislike in this effort.
Overview: ****/5
One of the more generally enjoyable and exciting entries in the Spaghetti Western cannon, there's not much to dislike with the film as the overwhelming positives manage to hold over the few minor flaws. Give this one a shot if you're a fan of the style, curious about it's late-era reputation or the creative side, while those who don't appreciate the genre should heed mild caution.
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