by Sun Meilan

Created on: April 22, 2009

During America's Civil War, three men are making their living by any means possible. Blondie (The Good) is a gunman who likes to keep on the straight and narrow as much as possible. Angel Eyes (The Bad) is a professional hitman will kill anyone so long as he receives payment. Tucco (The Ugly) is an outlaw who just wants to make a fortune. Then Blondie and Tucco come across news that there is a large sum of money buried in a graveyard. Blondie knows the name of the grave; Tucco knows the name of the cemetery - so both are determined to keep the other alive in order to get to the money. Then Angel Eyes finds out about the money - and decides to follow the other two in order to find the fortune for himself. Will they find a way to share? Or are two of the three destined to die?

Westerns are very far from being the type of film that I enjoy. However, I like to challenge myself every now and again by watching something outside of my comfort zone. In addition, I was intrigued to find out a bit about the background to spaghetti westerns directed by Italian director Sergio Leone, of which this is one. So The Good, The Bad and The Ugly was filmed in Spain, by an Italian director with a cast of international actors and yet is supposedly based in the American Old West. On top of that. Sergio Leone's work was apparently influenced by Japanese director, Akira Kurosawa - certainly the first film in the Dollars trilogy was legally challanged by the Japanese director for being very similar to his own film, Yojimbo. The Good, The Bad and The Ugly is the third film in the Dollars trilogy; the first being A Fistful of Dollars, the second, For a Few Dollars More. (Facts in this paragraph are taken from Wikipedia).

As Blondie, Angel Eyes and Tucco all pretty much share the top billing for this film, it is hard to claim that one is better than the others. However, I think Lee Van Cleef, who plays Angel Eyes, probably gives the best performance as far as I'm concerned - simply because everything about him just screams evil. The amazing thing is that he doesn't even speak all that much - most of his evil comes from his facial expressions - and of course, the fact that he has a tendency to shoot everyone he meets without a second thought. The only thing missing for me was a little more background to his character - but as the film is quite long enough as it is, it is perhaps just as well that the film wasn't dragged out any longer. Not being a fan of Westerns, I'm not really that familiar

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