Movie Review: For a Few Dollars More (1965) directed by Sergio Leone
It is a time when life is cheap, but death can be lucrative, and bounty killers have come to the land. One such killer is referred to as “Monco” (Clint Eastwood) because of his preference for doing things left-handed. Another is Colonel Douglas Mortimer (Lee van Cleef), a former Confederate officer who’s fallen on hard times. When notorious bandit El Indio (Gian Maria Volante) is broken out of prison, his bounty is raised to $10,000 dollars, dead or alive. Both hunters are eyeing this prize; can they work together long enough to collect it?
This is the middle part of the Man with No Name trilogy, and another classic spaghetti Western. Hard men do hard things in a harsh land where there are no good choices.
The movie has Sergio Leone sharing the writing credit, showing that he can come up with a good story (with help) even without a Japanese film to borrow from.
Monco (or Manco in the Spanish) remains the sarcastic Man with No Name or clearly identified past, though it would appear the hand that got injured in A Fistful of Dollars is still giving him some trouble. His character remains somewhat static.
Colonel Mortimer, on the other hand, has a very definite past, and hidden depths. He reads the Bible on long trips, has picked up safecracking skills and his bounty hunting has an end goal beyond mere money making. Which isn’t to say that he is not a cold-blooded killer and manipulator.
Mortimer has realized that El Indio, being a bit loco, will head for the most impregnable bank in the territory, in El Paso. He’s guessed right, as has Monco, but neither of those knows the real reason the bandit has picked that bank. El Indio has learned a secret that makes this bank much easier to rob than anyone might have guessed.
El Indio, despite his bland nickname, is a dangerous man. He pretends to have something of a code of honor, but cheats to make sure he does not actually have to fight on equal terms, and is unnecessarily cruel. He’s subject to abrupt mood swings, self-medicates, and has flashbacks involving a musical watch that get more revealing as the movie returns to them. His large gang may be convenient for staging robberies, but not so much for splitting the loot, but El Indio has a plan for that.
Ennio Morricone does the music again, and I think I like it best here in the middle movie where it takes breaks more often and thus has a bit more impact.
Content note: In addition to a lot of gun violence, there’s an extended torture scene, partial female nudity, rape and suicide. A minor character has his deformity picked on.
If you’re watching the rest of the trilogy, this is also very worth seeing.
And now, the trailer!
