Armed Response (3½ Stars)

Burt Roth (Lee Van Cleef) is a retired police officer. His three sons served in Vietnam. After returning home from the war Jim (David Carradine) opens a bar, while Tommy (Brent Huff) becomes a private investigator and Clay (David Goss) carries out shady deals that he won't disclose to the rest of his family.

A valuable statue is stolen from Tanaka, the head of a Los Angeles gang. Tanaka agrees to buy it back from the thieves for one million dollars. Clay and his partner Cory Thornton (Ross Hagen) are hired to carry out the exchange. Cory double crosses everyone when the exchange takes place. He kills the thieves to keep the money for himself. He attempts to kill Clay, but Clay escapes with the statue heavily wounded and gives it to his father before dying. His father has no idea what the statue is or how much it's worth. Cory tells Tanaka that Clay is the one who stole the money and the statue. Tanaka believes this and decides to wage war on the Roth family.

This is a mildly entertaining film with some good acting. It was one of Lee Van Cleef's last films and one of Brent Huff's first films, both of whom are outstanding actors. Lee spent his early career typecast as a bad guy in American westerns, but from the mid 1960's onwards he specialised in spaghetti westerns in which he usually played the good guy. I've seen him in a few films, but this is the first time I've seen him in a film which isn't a western.

Brent Huff is a different case altogether. He's someone that Hollywood passed by. In his very first films he showed that he had the talent to make it all the way to the top, but somehow he was never noticed. That's tragic.

Ross Hagen is a cool character in every film he appears in. He's just so likeable. It was difficult for me to take him seriously as the bad guy in "Armed Response". He's too pleasant to be bad.

The film's weak link, as far as the acting goes, is David Carradine. I never liked him much as an actor. He had a very rigid style that might have been appropriate in "Kill Bill", but it's certainly inappropriate in "Armed Response".

As is typical for low budget direct-to-video films, the film relies on plot twists rather than big production values. Although Cory is the film's bad guy almost all the film deals with the battle between the Roth family and the Tanaka clan. I can't help feeling that when they made the film they either ran out of time or money. The end is unsatisfying. Cory is never challenged, his death is accidental. In the final scene Burt Roth says that he wonders what has happened to Cory. That isn't the way to end a film. I would have rated it higher if not for this disappointment.

I should also mention that Michelle Bauer appears in a non-speaking role as a nightclub dancer. We only see her for 20 seconds, but she always lights up any scene that she appears in.

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (5 Stars)

Clint Eastwood.

Lee Van Cleef.

Eli Wallach.

This is the third film in the so-called Dollars Trilogy, directed by Sergio Leone, after "A Fistful of Dollars" and "For a Few Dollars More". Clint Eastwood appears in all three films, but he's a different character in each film. In the first film his name is Joe, in the second his name is Manco, and in the third film he's called Blondie. The film unites him with two giants of western films, Lee Van Cleef as Angel Eyes and Eli Wallach as Tuco. In 1966 Lee and Eli were very famous actors in the United States, but Clint was hardly known.

Blondie.

Angel Eyes.

Tuco.

The film is about $200,000 in stolen coins which a robber has buried in a cemetery. All three men want the money for themselves, but they need one another's help to find it. They aren't friends, they don't even like one another, but if they worked alone they would never find the money.

It's difficult for me to understand why Blondie is called "The Good". It could be argued that he's the most immoral of the three. He makes his money as a crooked bounty hunter. He delivers an outlaw to a sheriff, collects the bounty, then frees the outlaw and divides the money with him. After this he delivers the outlaw to another sheriff and starts his game all over again. Angel Eyes is a killer, a hit man for hire, but at least he has morals, because he always carries out every job he's given, even if a target tries to bribe him to spare his life. As we see later in the film, Blondie makes deals with both Angel Eyes and Tuco, double-crossing them as soon as they are no longer useful to him.

This film is the best in the trilogy, and in my opinion it's the best western ever made. Quentin Tarantino calls it "the best-directed film of all time" and "the greatest achievement in the history of cinema". High praise indeed. The cinematography is stunning. The suspense is breathtakingly intense, as the story slowly rolls on from one scene to the next, never hurried. The close-ups are both eerie and fascinating. It's as if we're drawn into the heads of the three mian characters.

The film takes place during the American Civil War. It seems to me that the director's sympathies lay with the South. The Union Army is shown devastating towns as they advance, leaving hundreds of dead and wounded wherever they go, while streams of refugees flee. In the prisoner of war camps the Confederate soldiers are tortured and killed. If history were judged on the basis of this film alone we would say that the wrong side won.

For a Few Dollars More (4½ Stars)

This was Clint Eastwood's second spaghetti western directed by Sergio Leone, after "A Fistful of Dollars". In America it was marketed as the return of the man with no name. First of all, despite the identical clothing and mannerisms, Clint Eastwood seems to be playing a different character in this film. Secondly, his name was actually Manco. His name was used twice in the film, and both parts were cut out when it was shown in American cinemas. That's silly. The Blu-ray disc I have in my hand now is a restored version containing the deleted scenes, and I can verify he does have a name. He's called Manco, not Joe as in the first film.

In this film Clint Eastwood plays a bounty hunter. While hunting for a bandit called El Indio his path crosses that of another bounty hunter, Douglas Mortimer, played by Lee Van Cleef. They meet as enemies, but they make an uneasy truce with one another, splitting the reward money of $10,000. Instead of killing him straight away they decide to wait until he attempts his next bank robbery, because his whole gang will be together, meaning more reward money. As it turns out, the other 14 gang members are worth $17,000 between them. Their plan fails and they are unable to prevent El Indio's next bank robbery, but that means there's a reward of $40,000 for the return of the money, so the "few dollars more" is actually $67,000. That's a whole lot of money, even today. How much was it worth in the 19th century? The sheriff in one of the early scenes says that he needs three years to earn $2000. According to online information a sheriff today earns an average of $45,000 per year, so I calculate that the total reward money was worth about $4.5 million. Not bad for a few days work.

When the film was made in 1965 Lee Van Cleef was a highly successful actor, well known in American westerns as a villain, while Clint Eastwood was relatively unknown, so they received equal credits in the film posters. The film even opens with a scene establishing Douglas Mortimer as a character, and Manco isn't seen until 15 minutes into the film. It's interesting to see the way the two actors continued with their respective careers. For Clint Eastwood it was the second of only three spaghetti westerns, after which he returned to making films in America. This was Lee Van Cleef's first film in Italy, but it was the beginning of a new segment of his life. Over the next 20 years, almost up to his death, he made another 20 spaghetti westerns. In America he had been predominantly a villain in his westerns, but in Italian films he was usually a hero. Maybe all that he wanted was to be known as the good guy.

It's worth mentioning the appearance of Klaus Kinski in this film, despite his relatively small role as a member of El Indio's gang. He speaks very few lines, but the variations in his facial expressions from one moment to the next are fascinating. The more I see him, the more convinced I become that he's the best actor who has ever lived.