|
|
| Sunday, April 18, 2010 11:40 AM |
| (Last updated on Sunday, April 18, 2010 02:34 PM) | | On the Viewer - The Good, the Bad, the Weird |
 by Fëanor |
I only got out to see one movie at the Philadelphia Film Festival Spring Preview (for obvious reasons), but I think I chose the right one. The Good, the Bad, the Weird is the freshest, most kick-ass action movie I've seen in years. It's fast-paced, hilarious, visually explosive, wildly inventive, and terribly clever. There's so much action, however, with each set piece bigger and crazier than the last, that by the time two gangs, a bounty hunter, a thief, and pretty much the entire Japanese army are chasing each other across a desert and shooting and killing each other with guns and cannons and horses and cars and knives and dynamite, the movie has overstayed its welcome by just a few minutes and become really a bit too exhausting. Piled on top of that are a surprise final revelation about one of the main characters that's a bit hard to swallow, and a deeply dark and depressing ending, which all combine to leave you even more exhausted and down. But I have a feeling that if I were to watch the movie again, and were more prepared for these things to happen, I might find it more enjoyable.
The Good, the Bad, the Weird, despite the fact that its story focuses on Korean outlaws in 1940s Manchuria, is actually a loving ode to Spaghetti Westerns, especially the classic exemplar of that genre which inspired the film's title, The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. The plot, which involves three men with mysterious, interwoven pasts working sometimes with - but mostly against - each other to find and secure a secret treasure, is rather similar, and the music too at times hearkens back to Sergio Leone's epic masterpiece. But the most obvious connection between the films doesn't come until the end. The final showdown is practically a shot-for-shot recreation of the other film's rightly famous climactic three-person face-off, with its quick succession of close-ups on faces and eyes and guns. But The Good, the Bad, the Weird is by no means a remake. In fact, it's a wildly imaginative film, especially visually. There's such a riot of colors, and such memorable images - the evil villain, his dark hair covering one side of his face, throwing a knife into the back of a centipede crawling up his door jamb; the crazy thief, wearing an old diver's helmet to protect himself from a hail of gunfire; the train, loaded to bursting with passengers of every type and fashion you can think of; the ghost market, with its fire-swallowers, international criminals, and storefronts selling every kind of stolen good.
The opening sequence, in which two separate gangs, a bounty hunter, and a thief all arrive at the same time to rob the same train, is so fun and funny and thrilling that it could practically stand alone as its own short film. And, as I already said, the movie only continues to one-up itself from there.
The Good, the Bad, the Weird goes on a bit too long. Its pessimistic, Treasure of the Sierra Madre-style, parable-like ending, though certainly conceptually brilliant, ends up being a bit of a downer. And that final twist about one of the film's most likable characters is a bit hard to believe. But the rest of the film is so clever and thrilling, it's pretty easy to make allowances for its few flaws. |
|
|
|
|
|
|
