Interesteg What makes it different from others?

Steinesongo Too many fans seem to be blown away

Dynamixor The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

Frances Chung Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

Antonius Block Clint Eastwood was not director Sergio Leone's first choice for the 'Man with No Name' role, but he's excellent, and a huge part of why this film is successful. He has the look of a rattlesnake in Leone's tight shots, exudes confidence and is tough, and yet he's also wryly playful. His best lines occur early on, when he calls out four men for trying to intimidate him by shooting at his mule when he rode into town. He says, "I don't think it's nice, you laughin'. You see, my mule don't like people laughing. He gets the crazy idea you're laughin' at him. Now if you apologize, like I know you're going to, I might convince him that you really didn't mean it." It's easy to see why this film and the rest of the Spaghetti Western films which shortly followed established Eastwood as a star. His poncho and thin black cigars are also iconic.Leone's direction is also strong. He creates a gritty, dark mood in this film, combines those tight shots on his actors with wide panoramas, and makes great use Ennio Morricone's music. The film was shot in Spain and has some gorgeous shots early on, but I would have loved to have seen more of them. The dialogue was clearly dubbed in afterwards, and except for Eastwood, is sometimes hard to understand. José Calvo is good as the innkeeper who befriends Eastwood, but John Wells (Gian Maria Volontè) as the main villain is just average. I was not happy that Leone had pirated Kurosawa's film Yojimbo (1961) to make this one, but tried to keep it out of my mind. It's an entertaining movie, the birth of a great collaboration between Eastwood and Leone, and seems to have been influential to the entire genre, and for all that it's worth watching.

manus byrne A fistful of Dollars is the the first film in the Dollars trilogy. The Dollars trilogy is one of the most famous trilogies ever made. But sadly the Dollars trilogy did not start off as a masterpiece. Most westerns made in the 1960s were just OK and were just fun action films and that is what A Fistful of Dollars is. The reason why there was so many westerns made in the 1960s is because they were cheap. A Fistful of Dollars was made on a budget of 200,000 which is quite cheap of films. Constraints of the budget shows and I alway felt when watching this that it was cheap. This film has a famous opening which is animated in silhouettes which does look unique but goes on for too long and some animations are repeated several times. The main chritor (The man with no name) or as I like to call him the man with no character because their really is no aspects about his character that differentiate him from other western characters. And that's not just the main character, there is not much to differentiate this film from other westerns made at the time. But there some will choreographed fight scenes but there is two problems with the fight scenes in this film. Fist it is the aim of the character. Ever time a character shots they never miss. Their shots are alway perfect, This gets rid of the tension that the character might just miss the shot. And whenever some does get shot they have most traumatic reaction to it. It is hard to explain but their reactions are so traumatic and unrealistic that it gets rid of the tension from how distracting it is. And although this film is rated R in America and 15 in the United Kingdom this film has very little blood or blit holes. So there is no indication that someone has just been shot. And I think that's way they all have such traumatic reactions. One of the best parts of this film is the soundtrack. it is some of the best and iconic soundtracks to ever be in a film. All in all A fistful of dollars is just an average western that doesn't really do much to innovate the genre. There are a few cool scenes and a some memorable quotes and a brilliant soundtrack. That is way I give A Fistful of Dollars a 6 out of 10

adonis98-743-186503 A wandering gunfighter plays two rival families against each other in a town torn apart by greed, pride, and revenge. A Fistful of Follars once again benefits from Clint Eastwood's macho perfomance but also his acting in general now as far as the rest of the cast goes? they did a pretty good job as well but don't really expect to see some oscar worthy perfomances or something like that. Definitely a Western that although a bit dated at times still has some very good scenes and Eastwood once again killing it in a part that fits him quite well.... (7/10)

Wuchak RELEASED IN 1964 and directed by Sergio Leone, "A Fistful of Dollars" stars Clint Eastwood as an expert gunman who drifts into a Mexican town where he finds himself in the middle of a war between two factions, the gun-running gringo Baxters and the firewater-running Hispanic Rojos. The story's based on Akira Kurosawa's 1961 samurai flick, "Yojimbo," which was patterned after the work of John Ford, so "A Fistful of Dollars" is an Itala copy of a Jap imitation of an American Western (!). Interestingly, Kurosawa sued Leone, but it never went to court. It ended with a settlement of $100,000 and 15% of the revenue of "Fistful" for Kurosawa.Speaking of ripping off (or homages), Ennio Morricone's excellent score (as usual) features a moving piece obviously inspired by Dimitri Tiomkin's outstanding "El Degüello" from "Rio Bravo" (1959). Compare the two.The opening act is great and is probably why so many people fondly remember this movie, but the middle act is weak. It starts with a thrilling massacre of dozens of Mexican soldiers, albeit curiously bloodless, carried out by a machine gun the likes of which the Earth has never seen (until this movie). For instance, it has multiple muzzles, like a Gatling gun, yet nothing revolves. I could go on, but I'll have mercy.This sequence is followed by a gunfight near a graveyard where members of the factions are absurdly fooled by two motionless corpses placed there earlier by Joe (Eastwood). Why sure! The final act is marred by another unbelievable scene where Joe boldly faces the main antagonist in a showdown. He has total faith in something that protects him with zero concern that any other part of his body besides his central torso might be hit. Why sure! Someone might argue that Joe KNEW Ramón Rojo would only aim for the heart, but there were several other lethal heavies present. How did he know they weren't going to shoot? Speaking of Ramón, Gian Maria Volontè is charismatic in the role, but he's even better in the follow-up, "For a Few Dollars More" (1965), as a wholly different character.Other problems include bad English dubbing, cartoony gore, the camera's curious infatuation with close-ups of sweaty, maniacal countenances and no female character of much note, although Marianne Koch and Margarita Lozano appear in small roles.There's this myth going around that Leone's Dollars trilogy introduced the concept of the antihero, otherwise known as the "good (or likable) bad man." Actually, the antihero had been around for decades when "Fistful" was released in '64. Take, for example, John Wayne's Ringo Kid in "Stagecoach" (1939) or Richard Widmark's Comanche Todd in "The Last Wagon" (1956) or Anthony Quinn's Bob Kallen in "The Ride Back" (1957) and, particularly, Brando's Kid Rio in "One-Eyed Jacks" (1961). These are just off the top of my head.The difference with Eastwood's antihero in Leone's so-called Man With No Name trilogy is that, unlike the antiheroes above, he is without personality, unless squinting, shooting, killing and smoking cheroots are taken as profound marks of character. In Short, Leone introduced the antihero CARICATURE as opposed to the antihero CHARACTER. Cool caricatures with superhuman bravery & abilities work just fine when you're in your teens or early 20s, but after you mature a bit you naturally desire more three-dimensional and believable characters."A Fistful of Dollars" is worth checking out for its engaging first act and its iconic place in Western history, but there are superior Eastwood Westerns, such as the two Leone non-sequels (1965 & 1966 respectively), "Hang 'em High" (1968), "Two Mules for Sister Sara" (1970), "The Outlaw Josey Wales" (1976), "Pale Rider" (1985) and "Unforgiven" (1992).THE MOVIE RUNS 99 minutes and was shot in Almería, Andalucía, & Madrid, Spain; and Rome, Italy.GRADE: C