Product Details

• Language: English
• Subtitles: Italian
• Region: Region 2 (Read more about DVD formats.)
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• ASIN: B000EXHXWG
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #422,616 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Customer Reviews

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A Woman or a Revolution?, September 10, 2002

By 

Raymond Rice "umpiricer" (Presque Isle, ME USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Blood and Guns [VHS] (VHS Tape)

Somewhat scanty production values, Giulio Petroni's sometimes lackluster direction, and some brutal editing (it would be wonderful to see the "full length" Italian version, which runs some 30 minutes longer than the American release), hamper but never ruin the enjoyment of this intriguing film. Set in 1913 Mexico, just before the assasination of President Francisco Madero (whose attempts at land reform figure prominently in the plot), "Tepepa" (its Italian name, and much more sensible than the ridiculous "Blood and Guns") has three major selling points: a wonderfully unctuous performance by Orson Welles as Colonel Cascorro (Welles riffs on his own "Touch of Evil" character from a decade earlier); Tomas Milian's surprisingly complex title character (a Zapata-like bandit leader); and the rather baroque but wholly engaging screenplay. In fact, the Kane-like mystery of the plot (just who is this "Tepepa," really?) may well have been part of the allure for Welles (who probably also needed the money). The action scenes are rather perfunctory, but look for a truly rousing speech (a la Che Guevera) from Milian (who was never better, although he went on to make over a dozen more spaghetti westerns) halfway through the film and its ironic counterpart at the conclusion, when Milian announces that Welles is "about to make a speech" (he never does, of course). The flashback where Milian gives up his guns to Madero is priceless: there's probably no better indictment of the inanity of war and the continual oppression of the landless classes. (As Welles says at one point to the peasants: "You don't like it that the landowner has returned? Too bad.") But most impressive is the conclusion, in which an English doctor (who wants to kill "Tepepa"--whomever that really is) has to decide whether to save Milian, and whether he can live with an ideology that chooses a revolution over a woman's life. This is by no means a feminist film, but it is a highly thoughtful spaghetti western, as one might expect from Franco Solinas, the screenwriter of such masterpieces as "The Battle of Algiers," "The Wide Blue Road," and "The Big Gundown." Ennio Morricone's musical score is uninspired but appropriately rousing. Recommended, so long as you can handle the bad print, bad editing, and sometimes confusingly truncated narrative.