Two Mules has many virtues: good actors, interesting plot, rich music, and excellent cinematography. In my humble opinion it beats all the other Eastwood/Siegel projects -- and that is meant as a high complement, given the strengths of films like Dirty Harry, Beguiled, and Escape from Alcatraz. Budd Boetticher, the great American B-western director, wrote the script -- although, reputedly, he hated the finished product. Nonetheless, his taste for brawniness and soiled heroes persists, in large part because the film (unlike Hang 'em High) resists the Hollywood urge to clutter the story with moral redemption. In fact, it is the one post-Leone Eastwood cowboy movie that most resembles a Spaghetti western: comic, bloody, improbable, anti-philosophical. Candy, that's what it is. Premium fruit-flavored candy.
Review of Two Mules for Sister Sara
