A long running gap in my Sergio Leone movie watching was the one with two titles – Duck, You Sucker (1971) aka A Fistful Of Dynamite has always been underrated or not as celebrated. Maybe because it doesn’t have Clint Eastwood or Charles Bronson? Instead you have James Coburn with an Irish accent as an IRA explosive expert and Rod Steiger playing a Mexican bandit leader – despite the initial stereotypes, they make a compelling team in their hard-won partnership. What begins as a profane spaghetti western slowly morphs into a war movie as Leone and his writers use the genre to comment on the fight against fascism in World War II within Italy as well as the human cost of revolution. A clear influence on something like Inglourious Basterds while having expensive set pieces that nobody could surpass these days, it’s a long ramshackle epic, buoyed by Ennio Morricone’s score, which is surprisingly kooky and mellow though often soaring with great melancholic emotion. If you’re a fan of spaghetti westerns or Sergio Leone, it’s available to stream in Australia on Stan.
VHS Tracking 