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It’s just not the same without
Vin Diesel.
And when I realized this, that not having Vin Diesel actually
detracted from a film, I knew that there was no way in hell
I was going see 2 Fast 2 Furious. If you’re the kind
of person who goes to see these kind of movies you fit into
one of two possible camps: You either like watching movies
about fast cars, or you just can’t get enough of Paul
Walker. Either way, there’s nothing I can do for you.
So, instead of putting myself through the hell of another
bad summer sequel, I took a walk down to my local revival
house to see a much better film. We’re going to go back
in time here, folks. Y’all need to be schooled in the
classics, anyway…
THINGS I LEARNED FROM:
The Good, The Bad and The Ugly
Cowboys can’t share. This is the old-timey nugget of
information I learned from watching Sergio Leone’s classic
spaghetti western, "The Good, The Bad and The Ugly."
I don’t know if it’s because the rustlers, gunslingers
and other general deviants that inhabited the Old West were
an unusually immature lot, or, being mostly illiterate folks,
they never got a chance to read Robert Fulghum’s self-help
tome “Everything I Know I learned in Kindergarten."
Hell, I wouldn’t be surprised if the cowboys who inhabited
the Texas-via-Spain landscape of this film ever attended kindergarten.
If they did, they would have learned that when everybody shares,
everybody wins. And when people don’t share, they end
up dead in a shallow unmarked grave somewhere along the Mexican
border.
"The Good, The Bad and The Ugly" tells the story
of three old west gunslingers, (Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef,
and Eli Wallach), as they fight over $200,000 worth of gold
coins while the Civil War plays on in the background. This
is where that whole “sharing is good” idea would
have come in handy. Back in the days of the War Between the
States," $200,000 was a lot of money, considering the
average jug of whiskey was a dime and the average whore came
free with two jugs. Sure, all three wanted the gold, but not
as much as they didn’t want the others to have it. Just
like a bunch of kindergartners grabbing at globs of Play doh
and crayons.
It isn’t so much the search for gold that drives the
action of this movie forward, however, as it is the relationships
between the three principal characters. Clint Eastwood plays
The Man With No Name (quite possibly his most famous role,
aside from Dirty Harry and The Man Who Showed America James
Garner’s Ass), a taciturn gunslinger whose propensity
for shooting first and stealing a man’s horse later won
him the dubious title of “the Good." Lee Van Cleef
plays Angel Eyes (the Bad), an amoral bounty hunter and assassin
who is able to make eating a bowl of soup the prelude to a
most terrifying murder. However, it is Eli Wallach, playing
the lying, scheming and cheating Tuco (the Ugly), who runs
off with the film. His Mexican bandit (admittedly stereotypical)
turns every tall tale, every brush with death, into an aria
of dishonesty and pain. Wallach’s final rant, given while
trapped under Eastwood’s noose, can be seen as a diatribe
against every wrong committed unto the Mexican race by Americans.
He conveys all this just by screaming “Blondie”
over and over again
Another thing I learned from watching "The Good, The
Bad and The Ugly" : it is surprisingly difficult to hang
another man. It’s much more efficient to just shoot him.
And unless you have an extremely compliant victim, it’s
neigh-impossible.
“Thread the rope through the tree.”
“Stand on the stool.”
“Put your head through the noose.”
“Hold still while I tie your hands behind your back.”
All the other guy has to do is say “No.” What is
the hangman going to do? Shoot him? Sure, he's brandishing
a gun, but he’s not going to use it. I never understood
this. If you’ve got a gun on the guy, why bother unraveling
the rope?
This is because Sergio Leone understands that when killing
a man, it’s not what you do, but how you do it. It’s
all in the execution (no pun intended). If the guy’s
going to end up dead anyway, why not show a little creativity
in how you kill him? Don’t just shoot a man; force him
to walk a hundred miles through the blistering desert, taunting
him with water that you washed your feet every time he falls.
Don’t just torture a man for information; have a brass
band play a ballad outside the prison cell, so that the sickening
sound of exposed bone hitting a concrete floor is scored by
The Tijuana Brass.
It is moments like these that make "The Good, The Bad
and The Ugly" rise above so many other westerns. Leone
utilizes Toninio Delli Colli’s amazing Technicolor cinematography,
and Ennio Morricone’s now-classic score, to elevate the
film to near-operatic proportions. A newly restored print
of this amazing film, with a extended running time of almost
three hours, is now touring the country.
I highly recommend that you go out and see this film. If
you need a movie about fast cars, go rent "Herbie Goes
to Monte Carlo."
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Above:
Please enjoy this photo of Vin Diesel. It has nothing to do
with this review.
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