Duck, You Sucker

Really kind of awesome, actually.

The introduction of James Coburn's character has to rank near the top of the list of coolest entrances ever--so great that it almost made me forget about the twenty minutes preceding it until just now, with Rod Steiger acting perfectly disgusting but still ending up more likeable than than the rich snobby folks in their coach. The closeups of their mouths while they were chewing seemed especially refreshingly un-Leone to me, an intrustion of a Fellini-esque weirdness into the hard edge of Leone's usual style.

I think it's probably that exact excess of ideas that is the major difference between this movie and Leone's earlier trilogy. They were so focused and sharp--even TGTB&TU at nearly three hours never really meanders. This has the first half hour of pure Leone coolness and then it kind of wanders into a more... something else... I guess if there's a genre of small-guy-accidentally-getting-caught-up-in-historical-events, a la Forrest Gump and Zelig, it was kind of that for a while... the momentum of that first half hour probably doesn't quite hold up the rest of the movie, especially with the draggy flashbacks to Ireland. They were so long and weird that I have to assume part of the point of them was their length and their weirdness, but I'm not convinced that they were very necessary anyway.

I really have no idea what to think of the final flashback, where Coburn hands over his girlfriend to his future-traitor friend. It was already creepy how happy they all were and how into watching them make out Coburn's friend was, but what exactly the hand-off was there for is beyond me, unless as some kind of indication that the revolutionaries in Ireland were also sexually liberated or something, which is a point that doesn't really seem to have a place in the movie. But, whatever. I'll give it points for being weird and for being the logical conclusion of all the creepy shoulder-patting by Coburn's friend while they were kissing.

Can't forget to mention the shot when they finally get to Mesa Verde and the camera pans across the posters of the governer and then stops to settle on one poster for a while until suddenly a finger protrudes from the white space to the left of the governor's face and tears a straight strip across his eyes, and then from behind Rod Steiger's eye's move into the light and look out from behind the governor's face. No word for that but 'awesome.'