Dollars Trilogy Review
SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS. I WILL SPOIL THE DOLLARS TRILOGY. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.
(This post was drafted on May 6th, written fully and published on May 17th)
So, I watched the 3 movies overnight. Well I had to split "For a few dollars more" because I slept through it and went back to my last memory and watched proper.
I have to say this first. This movie trilogy fucking ROCKS! Oh my fucking god, the dubbing was god awful but everything else was just AWESOME! Obviously, I have to go ahead and say that I fucking loved The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. It's the first movie I saw and I'm glad I did, it makes the "Man with no name" seem like a drifter who just started and he's moving around early. Even though the trilogy has no continuation properly, I'd rather say it's chronologically the first. But lets talk about this later on. First, What did I think?
The trilogy overall was pretty good, but honestly The Good, the Bad and the Ugly stands as the best out of them all. I love them all regardless but the least favorite of mine was "For a few dollars more" because honestly it was a bit boring and kinda dumb plot wise. More on that later. In my eyes, the headcanon I work on is that basically GBU starts first chronologically in plot, and then we go Fistful, and then "For a few dollars more".
The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly is possibly one of the highest western films I seen and it's not even a true western, it's a spag-western and yet it oddly captures the spirit of the west much better than any other realistic, grimy movie about western expansion. Sure it's more myth and I personally love realistic grimy westerns, they're my fucking favorite. But you'd be damned if you think this fucking movie wasn't awesome. A civil war setting with 3 morally dubious yet clearly defined characters with different reasons to go get this confederate gold coin treasure from a grave is nothing short of a fantastical writing and tension setting.
My only problem is that being an older movie with an international cast, it was dubbed and some scenes lingered longer than needed but that still worked in some scenes way better than just keeping it short. The mexican standoff between Tuco, Angel Eyes, and Blondie was probably the most epic fucking thing I've ever seen because it required no words. It's universally tense, and honorable. The trick was about to commence and no one knew who was friends or enemies with who anymore. And it ends off just like that. Angel eyes dead like the bastard he is. Tuco stuck with a noose around his neck as he calls Blondie a son of a bitch while Blondie rides off with his half. Awesome. Fucking Cinema. 10/10
Fistful comes next, and here Fistful of Dollars is basically first movie to come out, second in my headcanon because we see blondie now don his Poncho but in reality we don't really know his name, just his outfit and his caricature. The "man with no name".
He gets himself into a border town near the US-Mexican border (I assume it's in Mexico legally though), split between two families, exactly how the fucking Braithwaite and Grays worked up Rhodes in RDR2. I know there is a multitude of stories, books and other media that showed that kinda thing before, we literally have Romeo and Juliet to thank that mass spread of plot kind. I digress, the movie itself was good, it's not as good as GBU but it's fucking awesome because seeing the man with no name try to play both sides was exactly how I imagine anyone with the skill he had would do, and playing out how each family is gonna end is how I resonated with this movie being another fantastical writing of guilt as a mob of people rather than just a single villain. Also it literally ends off with the Baxter family being burned and shot down at their house by the Rojo family, LITERALLY JUST LIKE BRAITHWAITES IN RDR2 okay im sorry lmao. This movie gets 8.5/10 from me.
Okay, "For a few dollars more" isn't a bad movie and I'd love for you all to feel encouraged when I say it's a boring movie, but it's definitely something to watch atleast for 10 minutes to gauge the feeling. Basically the plot here is that man with no name is a Bounty Hunter, and there is another bounty hunter (I forgot his name, Colonel Mortimer?) who are trying to capture a whole ass gang. This gang is going around robbing banks. Eventually we get to the point where the 2 worked together to capture them and it's revealed the head honcho was the rapist to the sister of Colonel Mortimer and idk the man with no name gets his bounty wagon filled with dead guys and rides off. If it wasn't obvious, the problem with this movie is that it was my last watch in my binge and it was not as engaging. Still, the story is interesting enough that I would love to watch it again with focus.
Okay... so this is where I explain why it took me weeks to write this review of the dollars trilogy and what's going on. It's May 17th, and I have yet to fucking finally get to Concord and it's ultimately my fault for sure. I don't know why but every time I wanna go, I think "Eh, I can do it another day" and fucking postpone again! I hate myself for doing that stupid shit. So please do forgive me, dear readers, and remember to love yourselves! Here is a song that I love from the trilogy. The Trio