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Woods portrays Chris Tanner, a Union Voided serg agent, who, while being one of the few witnesses during the kidnapping of Richard Gatling along with his gun, becomes a suspect himself. Most of the people who witnessed the incident got murdered and severely mutilated. Tanner’s superior, Pinkerton, facilitates his escape in order for him to redeem his name and search for the missing Gatling gun. Tanner’s team discovers that this crime was orchestrated by the mixed race outlaw Tarpas John Ireland and a business partner (whom I will not name to avoid spoiling the story). Their goal is to abduct Mr. Gatling and demand a ransom of one million dollars while also selling the gatling gun to the confederates for another million. Well, that is all on the table until Chris Tanner intervenes…
Based on the reviews, this film appears to be polarizing so I carried no pre-set biases. For a multitude of different reasons, I find myself enjoying it. For one, it relied heavily on the story. This genre is usually plagued by seemingly generic templates with which we all too familiarized, but this is different. Similar to Valerii’s Price of Power, it takes a historical persona – Richard Gatling in this case, constructs a fictional plot around it, and does an excellent job telling the story. Of course, there are parts to the editing that are a bit eccentric for my taste, the pacing was spot on, and overall it was superbly acted. The score by Piero Piccioni was done with dramatic flair. There are also a few action packed scenes in which lengthy brawls take place. Woods also gets into a tussle with an angry bull and uses a blow gun to shoot miniature poison darts while trying to sneak into a place. In one scene, Tanner has to extract a bullet from his arm which borders the gory side of storytelling.
And I do enjoy when I stumble across one of those “oops!” moments, may it be bad props or a shadow from the cameraman, etc. This time, there was a styrofoam gravestone that seemed like it was going to collapse as Woods attempts a stunt jump and hits it.
Now, this is the second DVD release that I have reviewed from Dorado, and they did the restoration exceptionally well. Apart from some scratches here and there on the film, the colors are splendid, the picture is clear, and the sound quality is nice. It is such a joy to sit down and watch some of the more rare and lesser-known spaghettis in such pristine condition rather than the old VHS most people are used to. The case is a little skinny, as it only has a chapter list on one side of the box and Spanish movie posters on the other side along with a note regarding the upcoming editions. It would have been better to have some background information on the movie like their Burt Lancasters scarf had, but that is a minor pain.
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