Rating of
4/4
Westerns don't get better than this.
memento_mori - wrote on 08/25/13
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly is my favorite Western of all time. It has so much to love, that you forget there was a world based on laws. It's just thrilling scene by thrilling scene, and is always a pleasure to watch.
The acting is fantastic. Eli Wallach displays an almost tongue-in-cheek humor as the vicious, pitiless bandit Tuco. Blondie! I kill you!
Clint Eastwood continues his charade as the Man with no name, and he's fine with me. As a cowboy, he passes it off very well.
The characters interact very cleverly with one another. It seems like there is an electric static in the air whenever Tuco and Angel Eyes talk, or they are on the verge of shooting. Just looking at each other, these actors are scary. That is how you build suspense and mysterious characters. Great dialogue and great tension.
Ennio Morricone is one of my favorite composers, if not my favorite composer. His score becomes memorable and sticks in your mind, because he came up with one of the greatest title themes and placed it into the film only when necessary. Like a conversation between Blondie and Tuco, or Angel Eyes (the Bad) executing his nasty deed.
The music just fit right into place. Especially in the bombarded town stand-off.
The pacing is also excellent. The film is almost three hours long, and yet it flies by, or at least it lets me forget its exceeding length and fall in love with it scene by scene. My favorites include Tuco in the bathtub, the standoff in the evacuated town, Tuco running through the cemetery and the duel in the cemetary. So many great scenes.
Sergio Leone just captured the image of revolution and cowboys extremely well. I can't think of another Western film that embodies lone rangers and criminal personas in the Old West better than The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. I can watch this any day of the week, because it holds such a significant replay value standard, that it becomes a timeless classic.
