Monday, January 28, 2019

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly / Il buono, il brutto, il cattivo (1966)

Time for last and most epic entry in Dollars Trilogy. This time it is three men searching for hidden treasure. Clint Eastwood and Lee Van Cleef return but this time clearly different characters than in For a Few Dollars More. Every movie added one more character trying to outsmart others. Each movie have different tone. This time it is western mixed with war movie.

I watched extended version which added 14 minutes of footage to original English version. Movie drags at times but it wasn't caused by added scenes. I checked what was added and every addition made movie better. For example bridge scene was extended. It is one of the best scenes now. Most additions added footage related to ongoing Civil War which happens around. I can understand why it was originally cut away. It showed horrors of war and wasn't that important to main story arch. But it shows how war has nothing heroic in it.

Back to dragging. First two movies had more compact stories. Movie has long slow scenes and story jumps back and forth few times. Everything makes sense but cutting down some excess would have helped. This is the reason why The Good, the Bad and the Ugly doesn't rise above other movies in trilogy. It has more memorable scenes than others but excess drops it to same level as other movies.

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly of must see movie. It has few of the most memorable western scenes. It doesn't show the time as epic adventure. It is more of story of three men with weird sense of honor trying to make money when there is civil war going on. Even the Good is not that good.

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