movie poster for A FISTFUL OF DYNAMITE

Flicks ID

1474

Cert

15

Running time

147 mins

Country

Format

DVD

A FISTFUL OF DYNAMITE (1971)

SERGIO LEONE

Plot

A bandit leader and a fugative IRA man join together to rob a bank in an explosive spagehtti western set in Mexico in 1913. Having already, in Once Upon a Time in the West, taken energetic liberties with the typical Fordian Western, it's not surprising that Leone should have taken a sideswipe at another of the director's stereotypes, the revolutionary Irishman, in the second part of his trilogy of political fables. But the specific IRA background of Coburn's Sean is as ultimately unimportant as the specific Mexican setting: with characteristic flamboyance, Leone is more concerned to build a composite of the all-purpose, all-causes revolutionary 'John Doe' from Sean's informed commitment and the naïve brute force of Steiger's Juan. The most wry of the political spaghettis, and wholly wonderful.