For a Few Dollars More

1965's FOR A FEW DOLLARS MORE is the second in director Sergio Leone's DOLLARS trilogy.  The scope has widened.  Clint Eastwood, still The Man with No Name, now has a co-protagonist.  Actually, people call him "Manco" and he is an efficient bounty hunter who finds competition with Colonel Douglas Mortimer, played by Lee Van Cleef.  In the opening moments, we observe their skill and confidence in their work.  Then a baddie known as "El Indio" appears on a wanted poster.  The reward is considerable.   Both hunters want him, but their reasons vary.

Manco and Mortimer eventually meet, and the initial hellos are a bit awkward.  Part of them involves close shave gunfire that is quite comical.  Their eventual bromance will have a bumpy road of jealousy, distrust (rightly), and greed.  This uneasy relationship is what makes the film really tick, and many viewers found FOR A FEW DOLLARS MORE to be the best of the three movies.  I'm not so sure, as THE GOOD, THE BAD, & THE UGLY is such a classic, such a beast, that it is hard to judge them with the same metrics.  Large scale movies are sometimes weighed down by their own ambitions.   This second film does, in my opinion, achieve all of its goals, which are comparatively smaller than its follow up (which is actually a prequel).  If only it could've been a wee bit tighter.

Gian Maria Volonte is suitably nasty as El Indio.  A murderer and a cheat, yet he suffers a conscience - repeated recollections of a man he murdered and subsequent his rape of the widow, which occurred many years earlier.  The screenplay, penned by Leone, Luciano Vincenzoni, and Sergio Donati, is filled with rich character details such as this.  Volonte gets almost as significant a showcase as that of the leads.  The game is set up so that we know Manco and Mortimer will eventually face Indio and his gang, but the path there has many unexpected detours.  There is more than just bloodlust satisfaction in such justice to be found.  There are choice moments at every turn, including the famous scene when Cleef strikes a match against the neck of one of Indio's henchmen, played by Klaus Kinski.  There's something unexplainably satisfying about that.

Eastwood and Van Cleef are just perfect, and their personas are beautifully patented here.  Thankfully, there are never too many wisecracks, but just enough to blunt the force of the violent moments. The movie is essentially just great fun, with no particularly discernable Big Message.  Leone's operatic approach is legendary, and Ennio Morricone again provides just the right scoring.  At times it is downright eerie.