LogFAQs > #957345253

Poke: This film was phenomenal in that it subverted basically everything you preconceive about a westernhell, a movie in general. You think the protagonist is Silence, but its actually Loco, but they play it off like its reversed for the majority of the film. Brilliant.

Johnbobb: This has to be one of the bleakest film endings I've ever seen. This makes Fargo and No Country for Old Men seem cheery by comparison. I didn't love the film, but I'm definitely gonna be haunted by it for a while. Note: After watching every other film on this list, that ending is still burned into my mind.

Karo: This mute cowboy hates bounty hunters, so he tracks them down and kills them but not like a bounty hunter does its different okay shut up.
Silence's signature style is to provoke his opponent into drawing first so he can murder them in self defense with his overpowered automatic pistol. This guy is like a walking personification of gun laws in america.
After tangling with a corrupt official and his pet bounty hunters, Silence just walks headon into a trap because he is a fucking idiot and everyone dies.
Now it is okay for the protagonist not to win, but it is not okay for him to lose because of abject stupidity when it is shown throughout the movie that he is not THAT kind of dumb.
It is a film that is ahead of it time in terms of social awareness but unfortunately not a whole lot else.

KBM: Even for someone with my generally dark tastes in media, there is such a thing as TOO nihilistic, and this film really straddled that line. It may have even crossed it. That said, the unwavering bleakness certainly does make an impression, and that impression remains, largely, a very positive one. Masterfully filmed, visually gorgeous, with yet another brilliant score from Ennio Morricone, and a terrific performance from Klaus Kinski, this one is not to be missed by any fan of Spaghetti Westerns... just know that you're in for one hell of a dark ride, even by Italian standards.

CoolCly: Apparently this is by the same director who made Django, and it shows.

The dialogue is just as bad. And its not just bad dialogue. Its bad by itself its bad in the purpose its used for. Silence doesnt shoot anybody unless its in self defense!. Yeah, you actually just showed us that visually. But great job dumping this exposition on us with this terrible dialogue.

Its not just the dialogue thats badso much of the film making is just so subpar. This kid coming home to his mom saying oh is the lawyer here? At last, Im gonna get a fair trial. And theres really awkward moving close ups on the bounty hunters and their dumb grins. I have a feeling the mother having her son murdered like this in front of her is supposed to be shocking but... its just so poorly put together its almost comical. The whole scene just sucks.

I suspect the director is trying to ape the style of the Dollars movies in their tense shootouts and close ups but it doesnt seem to understand why those scenes work so well. Ive heard that the directors were friends, but theres a gigantic difference in craft here.

I bet if I go to the wiki for this movie, itll say that its considered by many to be one of the best westerns there is, and the director is amazing. Thats crazy. Its such a step below so many of these westerns that were 15-30 years older.

One credit Ill give this movie is to set this in these snowy mountains, which provides a pretty cool coat of paint on the western compared to the Mexican stone houses and wooden western towns in the desert every other movie is set in. One good visual decision in a sea of terrible ones.

Silence himself is a very weak protagonist. Having him be mute could be interesting, but its not used in an engaging way, and they dont make up for that to develop him some other way. His death at the end feels like remember how Django scraped through at the end? Well, it could go the other way too!! and just have him lose. They even use the same broken hands effects. But since I dont care about Silence at all, this was meaningless.

In a lot of ways, Loco is more the main character of this movie, and hes a lot more interesting. We often seen bounty hunters as anti heroes, who may dirty their hands, but are typically chasing down murderers and scumbags. But it does seem realistic that sadistic people who would use this to get away with killing would be drawn to the profession, and kill people who otherwise dont need killing. This seems to be a central theme of the movie, and Loco fulfills that role perfectly. He toes the line of violence and living within the boundaries of the law with express purpose, and has no intention of ever crossing this line.

His acting sells this character in a creepy way, and I really enjoyed it.

Where Loco falls off a cliff, however, is after he takes out the sheriff, and then suddenly pulls a band of outlaws out of his ass and assumes his role as bandit chief. I guess all that nuance of living inside the law just gets thrown out the window when you get a certain length of time in the movie. At this point, its just mindless massacre that this director cannot help himself from doing.

I think theres pieces of an interesting movie in here- but incompetence in directing took this movie far away from the heights of the Dollar trilogy.

4/10

Inviso: I can appreciate a good feel bad story, if the story is told well. This movie is not told well. As such, the crushing depression incited by the last half hour does not feel deserved or well-earned in any way. The characters in this movie feel flat and uninteresting, so much so that it couldnt keep my attention. The villains are one-note, generic caricatures. The sheriff is a one-note hero. The only interesting character is mute, and hes played by a guy who does a piss-poor job of acting out a character who is mute. And I dont know if the snow setting just hurt the film for me, but it wasnt exciting or fun or anything. And going back to the ending, one of the reasons the hero triumphs against all odds storyline works, is because it unleashes a level of catharsis for everything weve seen in the film. Theres nothing of that in this movie. Its just bleak and bland all the way through.
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Bear Bro
The Empire of Silence