Customer Reviews

Companeros

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Companeros! (1970) This is a very entertaining spaghetti western from director Sergio Corbucci (Super Fuzz). The story teams Italian superstars Franco Nero (Django) and Tomas Milian (Traffic) as reluctant mercenary pals teamed up to retrieve revolutionary Fernando Rey (The French Connection) from the clutches of his captors before creepy bad guy Jack Palance (Craze) can assassinate him. A safe filled with "all of the treasure" of Rey's hometown that only Rey knows the combination to is the prize. With a great Ennio Morricone score, a fast pace (despite a lengthy running time of exactly two hours) and a light hearted approach, Corbucci really scores with this buddy western. Nero and Milian have tons of screen presence and chemistry, and they are well matched against Palance, who is a lot of fun as a crazed pot smoking nutjob with one wooden hand and a pet falcon. As is usual with Italian films, everybody is dubbed (the Italians don't usually record sound while shooting, putting all of the sound in later in post production!) but the leads provide their own voices, and it also seems almost everybody is speaking English since the words mostly match the lip movements of just about everybody in the cast, making the dubbing far less noticeable than otherwise. The script also deserves some praise, with funny lines and salty dialogue that combine with the plentiful action and stuntwork to make this a highly recommended movie for those who enjoy a good western now and again and a must for fans. Check this one out!

I've seen many different versions of this film by vaious different companies, but this is by far the best.. The film is complete and uncut, the picture quality is excellent ant the extras are just enough without going overboard.

Right from the opening of the film , I knew it was going to be something great. From the shot of the church to Ennio Morricone's brilliant score. There are great performances, great laughs, and obviously some cool hand held action in this film. It's a fun ride man ! Franco Nero and Tomas Milian are a great team and Jack Palance as the post smokin' bad guy is just perfect. This is one of Corbucci's last great westerns and certainly one you wouln't want to miss.

10/10

SHORT REVIEW: I've seen a lot of Spaghetti Westerns, and this is just another one. Not bad, not great (thus, 3 stars). Nero, Millian, and Palance are some of the greatest actors to ever be associated with SW's, but overall this is just another re-hashing of the standard SW script format. Very, very similar to the film The Mercenary (aka Revenge of a Gunfighter).The print and presentation here are great; widescreen, no dirt, good sound, nice special features.

That's all folks!

This is one of the better 'Spaghetti Westerns' out there but for my dollar, it still falls a bit short.

Here's the scoop. Franco Nero is Sergei Kowalski, a mercenary who, uncomfortably and repeatedly referred to as "The Pollack", falls in with Tony Musante, a bandit cum revolutionary who ends up gaining a true desire to unite Mexico. A feisty woman joins the group and they horde through Mexico fighting the Feds, while a very foppish and somewhat effeminate Jack Palance (known as Curly) tries to work with the Feds to wipe the revolutionaries out.

It's difficult to comment on the production as this transfer is pretty awful. I don't know what the original print looked like. The sound was good as was the directing. Most of the scenes moved well and the editing was smooth. But I had problems with it though in various ways. I liked the the Tony Musante character. He was engaging and he did transform from a small time hood to someone on a real mission. Giovanna Ralli is nothing if not gorgeous and her character was Okay. I thought she needed a stronger voice. My biggest problem was with Franco Nero. I just couldn't get into him. I thought he lacked presence, and he was given the annoying trait of striking his matches on whomever was closest to him. I guess it was supposed to give him some ongoing identity but it didn't do it for me. Ennio Morricone provides his usual great score and the director, Sergio Corbucci, takes a page out of the Sergio Leone book of directing by staging the final shootout in a circle.

This is one of the better entries into the genre. In my book one viewing is enough, but fans of Spaghetti Westerns should put this on their watch list.

Strong spag western reminiscent of notable Leone films. Frantic pacing with excellent acting. The cryptic right-wing theme masquerading behind left-wing themes, as is typical for western genre films of this era, makes this film a worthwhile standalone just as piece of cultural history but there's a lot more going on besides the historical significance. Good bonuses too.

This is a nonsense, no-redeeming-value spaghetti western. I watched the whole thing because I just KNEW it had to get better. It didn't. Loved the music though, Ennio Morricone has really captured 'violence, emptiness and despair' in his music. This movie is for Ennio Morricone fans.