“A Fistful of Dollars” Movie Review

 

“A Fistful of Dollars”

Movie Review

 

A Fistful of Dollars is a spaghetti western directed by Sergio Leone, released in 1964 and starring Clint Eastwood in his first leading role alongside Gian Maria Volonte, Marianne Koch, Wolfgang Lukschy, Sieghardt Rupp, Jose Calvo, Antonio Prieto, and Joseph Egger done. The film is a co-production between Italy, West Germany, and Spain. It was the first film to popularize the spaghetti western genre. Eastwood later starred in the films For a Few Dollars More, The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. Collectively, the films are known as the "Dollars Trilogy" or "The Man with No Name Trilogy". These three films were then released back-to-back in America in 1967, catapulting Eastwood to stardom. The film was identified as an unofficial remake of the 1961 Akira Kurosawa film Yojimbo, which resulted in a successful lawsuit by Toho, Yojimbo's production company.

A Fistful of Dollars was filmed in Spain, mostly in Hoyo de Manzanares near Madrid, but also in the Tabernas Desert and Cabo de Gata-Nijar Natural Park in the province of Almeria.

The story of the film is that a nameless stranger arrives in the small town of San Miguel on the Mexico-United States border. Silvanito, the town's innkeeper, tells the stranger about the rivalry between two families of smugglers vying for control of the town: the Rojo brothers, Don Miguel, Esteban, and Ramon, and the town's sheriff, John Baxter, and his estranged wife, Consuelo and their son Antonio. The stranger decides to play these families against each other to earn money. He demonstrates his speed and accuracy by wielding a gun on both sides, easily shooting down four men who insult him as they enter the city.

The stranger seizes an opportunity when he sees Rojos massacring Mexican soldiers guarding a box of gold that they plan to exchange for a shipment of new rifles. He takes the two bodies to a nearby cemetery and sells the information to both groups, saying that two Mexican soldiers have escaped the attack. Each faction rushes to the cemetery, and Baxter lures the supposed survivors into testifying against Rojos and Rojos to silence them; They engage in a shootout in which Ramon appears to kill the survivors and Esteban captures Antonio Baxter. A stranger approaches Marisol, a woman caught in a clash between feudal families, to accompany Ramon and take their young son, Jesus, to the home of her husband, Julio. He learns from Silvanito that Ramon portrayed Julio as a cheater during a card game and that Marisol forced the prisoner to live with him.

That night, as the Rojos celebrate, the stranger sneaks in and frees Marisol, shooting the guards and breaking into the house where she is being held to create the appearance of an attack by the Baxters. He pays Marisol off, forcing her and her family to leave town. When the Rojos learn that the stranger has freed Marisol, they capture and torture him; However, he escapes them. Believing that Baxter was protecting him, Rojos set Baxter's house on fire and massacred them as they fled the burning building. After pretending to save his life, Ramon kills the begging John and Antonio Baxter. Consuelo appears and finds her family dead, cursing Rojos for killing unarmed people. Then Esteban was shot dead. With the help of Piripero, a local coffin maker, the stranger escapes the city by hiding in a coffin.

The stranger hides inside a nearby mine, but when Piripero tells him that Silvanito has been captured and Rojos is torturing him to find out where the stranger is, he returns to town to confront them. Hiding a steel chest plate under his poncho, he taunts Ramon by "aiming for the heart" as Ramon's shots deflect until he runs out of ammunition for his Winchester rifle. The stranger knocks the weapon out of Ramon's hand and kills Don Miguel, Rubio, and other Rojo men standing nearby. He uses the last bullet of his gun to free Silvanito, who is hanging from the rope by his hands. After challenging Ramon to reload his rifle faster than he can, the stranger shoots and kills Ramon. Esteban Rojo takes aim at the stranger's back from a nearby building but is shot by Silvanito. The stranger bids farewell to Silvanito and Piripero and walks out of town.

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