As a fan of the violent Spaghetti Westerns I was pretty disappointed in this wanna be! The movie handles the story of "El Macho", a violent gambler who earns his money in 2-day poker games. One day a local sheriff finds out he's the spitting image of the "Buzzard". The perfect opportunity for the arm of the law to replace the "Buzzard" who was recently killed in a gunfight. This way they have the perfect occasion as solution to infiltrate the gang of The Duke. One detail though, the Buzzard wasn't the smartest nor the toughest gang member. He was more like the low life of the bunch everyone picked on. This information didn't suit "El Macho" at all, as a brutal gambler he couldn't take someone picking on him in any way!
The story itself sounds appealing, though the director hits the ball completely in the wrong direction. Instead of delivering a strong original story he serves us a boring and uninteresting plot in a mixture of a totally off beat soundtrack, bad acting and slow motion scenes which will bug the hell out of you while watching this film.
The look of the movie itself is dull and dark, the director must have shot his movie on sun-less days. One of the main characteristics of a Western flick, deserts filled with sweaty cowboys thru a burning sun? Well don't search for it in this picture, you wont find any sweat on their faces or a sunny desert scenes! The scenery in the back drop is mind-numbing and for sure something we've already seen 1000 times before.
The promised violence, which brands most of these typical westerns, is also not to be found. The gun battles are short and you will loose most of the action thru the smoke. I know in that time, firing a gun was accompanied by some smoke of the black powder that ignited though I guess the FX-crew overdid it a little too much!
I guess I hit the ball completely like it should be hit by stating we have a disappointing western flick, which deserves a full 1 out of 10.
Dario/
