A Bullet for the General
by Damiano Damiani
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DVD details
Actor: Gian Maria Volonte, Klaus Kinski, Lou Castel, Martine BeswickDirector: Damiano Damiani
Brand: WEA DES Moines Video
DVD: Region Code 0
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language)
Format: Color, Dolby, DVD, NTSC, Widescreen
Picture Format: 2.35:1
Running Time: 118 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2007-03-27
Audience Rating: Unrated
Model: 1084
Studio: Blue Underground
Product features:
- At the height of the Mexican revolution, a mysterious young American (Lou Castel of Fist In His Pocket) joins a gang of marauders led by El Chucho (Gian Maria Volont of A Fistful Of Dollars) on a series of savage raids to steal guns for a powerful rebel general. But when the Gringo brings his own cold-blooded ideals to the bandits, El Chucho discovers that the real weapons of war belong to no army
DVD Reviews of A Bullet for the General
DVD Review: "Don't buy bread - buy dynamite!"
Summary: 4 Stars
Following with the unlikely alliance of an opportunistic American (Lou Castel) and a Mexican bandit (Gian Maria Volonte) who sells arms to the rebels, the first half hour or so of Damiano Damiani's cult classic is more than a bit ropey. The director has difficulty establishing the relationship between the two leads and resorts to a succession of shoot-em-ups. Thankfully, these are better handled than the drawn out opening attack on the train carrying Castel's enigmatic gringo, in which too many of the ideas are in the script and too few in the execution.
If the first half is the usual running with the rebels territory, the film becomes more complex as it progresses. It is clear from the beginning that the gringo is working to his own agenda, and throughout the course of the film he steers the group towards it. Not interested in women, he professes to be interested only in money, yet at one point kills a rebel paymaster and throws away his cash. Yet even after his objective and the bandito's part in it become clear, the film manages to take the characters even further in an intriguing epilogue.
Both may be mercenary, but finally choose their own executioners, although in very different ways. Castel inadvertently because, despite ruthlessly killing those on both sides to achieve his end, he is ultimately not ruthless enough, Volonte voluntarily, passing judgement on himself when he realises the consequences of his actions.
Castel is a fairly anonymous lead as the 'ugly American', a potential flaw which the director manages to turn to the film's advantage. A moral void, he has no ideals and no scruples but is instead a remorseless pragmatist. The real undercurrents in their relationship are brought out by Volonte; his bandito, first seen literally banging his own drum, manages to avoid caricature. His growing politicisation is convincing, as is his spellbound look of (largely sexual) confusion at the gringo during a confrontation with a landowner. The audience's sympathies are never directly engaged, our involvement with the character more covert and accidental en route.
Hailed as the best of the political spaghetti westerns, A Bullet For the General doesn't quite live up to the epithet but is still a remarkable example of the genre. Co-writer Franco Solinas also wrote Battle of Algiers and Quiemada, and his revolutionary fervour is very visible in the film's parallels with America's covert overseas operations and the presence of a militant priest throwing hand grenades in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost (a less wired than usual Klaus Kinski as Volante's half-mad half-brother). The film even ends with a call to arms -"Don't buy bread, buy dynamite!"
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Description of A Bullet for the General
At the height of the Mexican revolution, a mysterious young American (Lou Castel of FIST IN HIS POCKET) joins a gang of marauders led by El Chucho (Gian Maria Volonte of A FISTFUL OF DOLLARS) on a series of savage raids to steal guns for a powerful rebel general. But when the Gringo brings his own cold-blooded ideals to the bandits, El Chucho discovers that the real weapons of war belong to no army. In a land ravaged by poverty and violence, can true freedom be bought with a single bullet?Klaus Kinski (FOR A FEW DOLLARS MORE) and Martine Beswick (DR. JEKYLL AND SISTER HYDE, THUNDERBALL) co-star in this legendary western directed by Damiano Damiani from a powerful screenplay co-written by Oscar®-nominee Franco Solinas (THE BATTLE OF ALGIERS, THE BIG GUNDOWN). Also known as QUI�N SABE?, this thrilling epic features some of the most surprising performances, radical politics and shocking violence of any `Spaghetti Western' ever made.
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