Well, I never thought I'd slag off ANY spaghetti western director's entire body of work, but I think in A De Martino's case I'll make an exception. There are VERY few of the genre that I don't enjoy watching, even when not very good. I've watched all of this director's SW's now (including the rare Gli Eroi di Fort Worth) and I have to say that if all SW's were like this, I would not own even one and I've over 200.
It's hard to put your finger on what's so...boring and irritating...about his movies (yeah, Banditi a Roma is just as bad). I mean, there are LOTS of plot inconsistencies and anachronisms and poorly constructed sets on MOST SW's, and that never irritates me. It does with this guy, though. His errors err on the side of Hollywood. The screen writing is something I'd expect from a primary school production. You never care about his characters- even that they get what they've got coming. HORRID special effects, and like I said, that usually doesn't bother me much. ALWAYS messes actual history up in a way that makes no artistic statement. Fixated on Apaches- they were only in West Texas. Really poorly done Apaches. There's a girl with really, really thin, dyed black hair...but her braids are as thick as my first.
His stuff must be hell for method actors. There's never a rhyme or a reason for the characters' behavior. The kid in this one has two faces he can pull- cheering someone on and being upset. So, he randomly chooses between the two. Constantly. Every 3 seconds. No reason. No reason he'd change so quickly, then back, then change. That's acting, right? We never have a clue in this why the protagonist is interested in Cherry or how he knows what he does. Was this supposed to be like the Return of Martin Guerre??? I kept expecting we'd hear that he knew the character they all keep mistaking him for, but no. That would be a coherent plot, and this bloke's screen plays NEVER have that.
I guess the only use for his work is to see if a SW fan is of the knee-jerk, ego identity variety, or if they still retain some discrimination. If they like this one, they're definitely in the first basket.
Bottom line, this one is the visual equivalent of the soundtrack to Keoma. Yeah.
