Rape. When a movie’s lead commits rape in the first few minutes of a picture, it had better be A Clockwork Orange.
I watched 1971’s A Fistful of Dynamite expecting nothing more than dumb fun and a bunch of stuff blowing up. I don’t think that was too much to ask. Despite being directed by Sergio Leone, it is rated PG, so figured, “I know many PG films of the 1970’s would be rated R now but, really, how offensive can this be?”
Very offensive, as it turns out. I don’t care about the multiple F-bombs, nor the great number of twitching bodies we see as people are mowed down by gunfire. Nope, what killed the experience for me, and it happens very early in the film, is the rape of a wealthy female passenger from a stagecoach Rod Steiger had highjacked.
Obviously, not Steiger the actor, but the character he plays here in brownface, as a Mexican bandit. From the way this scene plays out, I suspect there is a suggestion she had the assault coming to her. She and her fellow passengers had been insulting him all the time before the highjacking, when he was pretending to be a poor man begging for a ride.
Soon (though not soon enough for me), he and his gang attempt to rob a motorcyclist passing their way. The cyclist reveals himself to be James Coburn, who I have always found sufficiently scary enough that I would have just sent him on his way. Instead, they threaten to shoot him, but he reveals his coat is filled with sticks of dynamite. There’s also a vial of nitroglycerin he keeps suspended in a flash of whiskey around his neck.
Steiger sees this as an opportunity to raid the bank of Mesa Verde, which has been a dream of his since he was a wee bandito.
A plan is formed to stage a fake revolution as a decoy. Then the bank is discovered to not have any money in it. Instead, the vaults are full of political prisoners. Not sure why the government felt the need to hold these people, when it had no hesitation in killing others.
Having inadvertently freed the prisoners, Steiger becomes a folk hero—a figurehead for a real revolution that started from a bogus one. Coburn is more committed to a political ideology, as he is a member of the IRA and a fugitive. Too bad he isn’t more committed to his Irish accent, which mysteriously appears suddenly, and which comes and goes seemingly at random. According to Ebert’s Little Movie Glossary, this condition is known as “Streep throat”.
The movie was originally released in a shorter version titled Duck, You Sucker! I wonder if that version had tighter editing and fewer scenes which I felt added nothing to the experience. Most of the scenes just drag on and on, even most of the scenes I would consider to be essential to the story. Many other scenes neither advance the plot nor did I feel they developer character or even added atmosphere. At one point, Coburn breaks a chicken’s neck and I realized I never wanted to see this actor choking the chicken. Heck, even the very first shot of the picture is ants struggling in a stream of piss coming from Steiger, and I challenge anybody to provide a reason for this to be on the screen (also, are these literally “pissants”?).
Lastly, there’s the soundtrack, by the justly legendary composer Ennio Morricone. But everybody has their off days, and this is one of his. Admittedly, some pieces used here are compelling in that they are oddly hypnotic. Alas, other bits are ruined by a female voice repeatedly singing something that sounds like how I imagine a frog might sound if it tried to croak, “GUAC”. Unless this was a subliminal message from Guacamole merchants, I have no idea what the intention of this was, but it is annoying. At other times, the voice seems to be singing, “Sean, Sean”. I likely would enjoy the entire score on its own, but it is too often incongruous with what is on the screen, and the soundtrack should never distract from the film it accompanies.
I only skimmed a few reviews before buying this blu-ray of A Fistful of Dynamite, and they were absolutely glowing. After watching the film, I went back and read the full reviews. I was shocked by how drastically different my feelings about it were from seemingly everybody else’s. What can I say? I can form my own opinions and, while they may change over time, I have the courage to stand by them. So I have no problems saying I hated this movie.
Dir: Sergio Leone
Starring Rod Steiger, James Coburn
Watched on Kino Lorber blu-ray