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25 reviews in total

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19 out of 20 people found the following review useful:
The film makes a little sense but a lot of amusing noise…, 21 May 2007

Author: ironside (robertfrangie@hotmail.com) from Mexico

The movie takes place during a bloody time period of Mexico history… At that time, anyone coming to Mexico ought to be speaking Spanish… But Lyedecker (Jim Brown) didn't speak the language… He was a black policeman looking for a valuable man, a bank robber named Joe Herrera (Burt Reynolds), who looks Mexican but doesn't talk Mexican… Herrera is a half-breed, whose mother was a Yaqui Indian and his father was from Alabama…

General Verdugo (Fernando Lamas) is sure that the money was not spent on women or on Whisky… For him, Joe stole the $6,000 from the Citizen's Bank in Phoenix, Arizona to buy 100 rifles for his people, the Yaqui Indians…

Verdugo—a murderer and an assassin who runs the State of Sonora—have orders to get rid of the Yaquis any way he could, and he took the easy way by killing everybody… He even kidnapped Yaqui children to regain the rifles… And now he wants Lyedecker's head on a stick in the middle of the plaza for everyone to see…

Lyedecker doesn't care about nothing and nobody… He took a job that nobody else wanted… His intentions are to take Joe back for the $200 reward and a permanent job… The policeman rejected any deal in spite of all the atrocities he witnessed like executing Indians or hanging them up like a side of beef…

Steven Grimes (Dan O'Herlihy)—who runs the railroad— doesn't want his train to be a small sacrifice to the mean general… The German military adviser Lt. Von Klemme (Eric Braeden) thinks that the Indians must be finished off as quickly as possible before more guns come through… Raquel Welch's most audacious moment comes out when the Indians attack a well-guarded train carrying troops and supplies, and she was openly showering in the flat part, under a water tower…

With a very nice score by Jerry Goldsmith, "100 Rifles" is a slam-bang action epic, with loads of explosions and gory fighting, making little sense but a lot of amusing noise…

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13 out of 21 people found the following review useful:
Spaghetti or Chop Suey?, 12 February 2003
Author: harry-76 from Cleveland, Ohio

The action film is a pretty obvious genre. It's purpose is to distract, entertain, and many money. Yes, there's quite a market for this material, probably supported by a similar audience that keep gothic paperbacks moving in the marketplace year after year.

"100 Rifles" is a substandard action western that offers a time capsule back to the late 60s early 70s. Generally unpleasant in its excessive depiction of killing and bloodletting, the film does utilize the star talents of three interesting actors.

The lead role gave Jim Brown an opportunity to strut his macho stuff, riding horses, shooting bad guys, and fist fighting his male costar on occasion. It also provided a couple of intended heated love scenes with his leading lady. Unfortunately, Brown comes across as wooden and even disinterested here. Too, his vocal instrument is much too high pitched and unsonorous to match his impressive physicality.

Burt Reynolds comes off better, making the most of his high cheekbones and sunken eyes--lending credibility to character ethnicity. He, like Brown, is in fine physical shape, and even elects to do some fancy stuntwork himself, like jumping off a moving train.

Still, it's Rachel Welch that emerges victorious here. Here's an actress that takes on a routine part in a routine script and plays it for all its worth. Also in great shape, Welch knows that if she's got it, she might as well flaunt it. She does, and we are the appreciative recipients.

The film also shows how much energy it takes to do this kind of production. Not a great deal of brainwork required, but a barrelful of brawnwork.

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5 out of 6 people found the following review useful:
Revolution okay, 7 May 2007

Author: Juha Hämäläinen from Finland

Judging by the plot this movie shows up as a pretty typical action western of the late sixties with revolution stuff leaning strongly on the messages of counterculture and the Vietnam era. Mostly it seems to ride somewhere between 'The Professionals' and 'The Wild Bunch' for its mood and action. A strong link through the story can also be made to Damiano Damiani's 'A Bullet for the General', an excellent spaghetti western with some political overtones. In '100 Rifles' one can forget the politics and concentrate on action. This is a very violent western but still surprisingly low on gore. A bit like in those older westerns, a lot of shooting and stabbing and whatever without gushing copious amounts of fake blood. Maybe that suits better here. We have seen enough Peckinpah imitations already.

The film takes full advantage of Raquel Welch's well working sex appeal. The hot love scene between her and Jim Brown was considered controversial at the time the movie came out. Now it's just two people making love and Welch really enjoying her work or being corny, judge yourself. Brown makes a highly likable hero and Reynolds in his before super-stardom state of career is also good as a halfbreed bandit with the familiar glint in the eye. At times I got the feeling he was lightly making fun of Marlon Brando's Zapata. That may be, because I recently saw on DVD an old episode of Sonny and Cher Show in which he was successfully aping Brando's Kowalski from 'A Streetcar Named Desire' and was so funny. So, an okay action western but nothing revolutionary in spite of the story subject.

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5 out of 6 people found the following review useful:
A bit clumsy sometimes, but good fun, 7 February 2007
Author: sheenafilm from Hamburg, Germany

Sheriff Lyedecker (Jim Brown) comes to Mexiko as he chases the bank robber Yaqui Joe (Burt Reynolds). As a victim of circumstance, Lyedecker becomes the number 1 enemy of a Mexican general who wants to kill the Yaqui Indians. The sheriff has no other choice than to fight side by side with the bank robber and the Indians now...

The years 1969-1971 mark the beginning of the modern western with the irony of „Little Big Man", the cruelty of „Soldier Blue", the myth awareness of „Butch Cassidy And the Sundance Kid", the depression of „McCabe & Mrs Miller" and many more. „100 Rifles" is a kind of missing link between 1960s westerns and the new approach as from 1970 onwards. It makes deliberate, obvious attempts to break taboos, telling the love story between a black guy and a white woman, pushes violence to the level of an Italian western of that time, includes nudity not only in Raquel Welch's famous shower scene, but also in Soledad Miranda's hotel scene at the beginning, and the screenplay adds a left-wing political, anti-racist theme. „100 Rifles" gets carried away by its own enthusiasm sometimes, putting forward its messages a bit clumsily compared to the elegance of „The Professionals", a movie which took much more careful steps into the revolution movie direction 2 years earlier. Nevertheless, I enjoyed watching the picture for being a (wild) child of its time, speedy narration and a gorgeous Raquel Welch.

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3 out of 3 people found the following review useful:
Its a good Spaghetti Western Clone, 27 August 2006

Author: mgtbltp from upstate ny

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

This was well directed by Tom Gries a veteran TV director (Route 66, Combat, Rat Patrol, Man From Uncle) who's previous Western was "Will Penny".

This is a "no-pata" Western, sort of like a Zapata Western with no politics much like "The Wild Bunch" which fits this category.

The cast has Jim Brown, Burt Reynolds, Raquel Welch, Frenando Lamas, Eric Braeden, Aldo Sambrel, and a lot of SW extras that you will recognize. Shot in beautiful Almeria, the release is in uncut widescreen.

Spoilers:

The story opens with the hanging of Sarita's (Welches) father by the Federales. Officer Verdugo (Lamas) is a blood-thirsty bastard, and he purposely pulls the horse out from Sarita's father so slowly so he's strangled rather than has his neck broke. Sarita runs up and jumps upon her father using her weight to kill him quickly, its a powerful scene.

Sarita now becomes a Soldada, a Yaqui leader.

Jim Brown ex NFL football star isn't all that bad in this and he is believable as Arizona policeman Lyedecker on the trail of Yaqui Joe a Half Breed cross of a Yaqui Indian-Alabama Good-old-boy father (Burt Reynolds) who has robbed 6,000 dollars from an Arizona bank. With which he purchased the 100 rifles of the title for Sarita and The Yaquis.

This film does have some great action set pieces the escape of Yaqui Joe & Lyedecker out of the train and through the town shows off Reynolds stuntman abilities and Brown's athleticism.

There is a great bout of horsemanship as the group of Yaquis descend down an unbelievably steep canyon, its really pretty exciting seeing the horses negotiate that decent.

All the action sequences are good, no complaints, especially Raquel's shower sequence (more like a wet "T" shirt shower) where she stops a troop train by a water tower, watch the spider holes.

The train wreck at the end is also done well.

I'm thinking now that these American or British financed Euro shot Zapatas & "nopatas" are some of the best clones of the general SW trends in Westerns that influenced the genre after Leone's successes. They never reached the heights that Leone did with "gunfight" based Westerns (like FAFDM or GBU) but with "Villa Rides" a Zapata and this film they very good jobs of cloning the Italian directors, the only missing elements are the innovative camera angles and the picaresque characters. I also thought "Chato's Land" was very good in its chase/manhunt sub genre while The Hunting Party was good but had a few minor flaws.

On the other hand Welches Hannie Caulder is lame in comparison.

100 Rifles even has a decent score, its not at Morricone's level but its good enough.

Another couple of interesting angles is the emergence of Welch as a strong believable protagonist in this film, and also the inter-racial sexual affair between Brown & Welch. Cinematically speaking I don't quite know if after "The Great Silence" breaking this particular taboo if this was the next instance of inter-racial love or not.

This is one of Jim Browns best performances in a Western that I've seen so far, though I've not seen them all , and haven't seen El Condor since seeing it in a theater years ago so that claim may change.

Its worth finding and buying for your collection

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4 out of 5 people found the following review useful:
Better than I thought it would be, 7 April 2008

Author: smatysia (feldene@comcast.net) from Houston

I admit that I liked the film, rather more than I expected to. Jim Brown, while not a professional actor held his own for the most part, although his scenes with Raquel Welch seemed a little forced. This makes me think that acting is not really that hard to do acceptably, since so many non-actors have done OK at it. Welch does her part and looked wonderful. Burt Reynolds was at the top of his game here, before he became a world-wide phenomenon, still had to make his way ACTING. Fernando Lamas was suitably evil as the native general/governor trying to commit genocide on the poor, misunderstood, peaceful Indians. And I have to mention the beauty of the late Soledad Miranda. She brightened the screen in the short time she was on it.

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4 out of 5 people found the following review useful:
Rickety spaghetti western with cartoonish violence and all the standard clichés..., 17 August 2005

Author: moonspinner55 from redlands, ca

Jim Brown isn't too bad as a sheriff who chases half-breed bank robber Burt Reynolds to Mexico, where both are captured by the vicious Mexican Army, but Raquel Welch is surprisingly underused as a guerrilla fighter. All the clichéd western-genre moments you can think of are on display here: the cliff-side brawl, the train-wreck, the dirt-town shoot-out, the wild drunken party, the surprise fire, and on and on. Welch is lovely but way over-the-top while warming up to manly-but-wooden Brown (when she tells him, "I am your woman", she's suddenly so serious you can almost believe it); she's also very sexy showering under a water-tower (as a ruse to get a train to stop), but 80% of the picture is given over to the men, and their squabbles are completely routine and dull. "100 Rifles" could use less rifles and more human interaction. ** from ****

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5 out of 7 people found the following review useful:
Very Enjoyable US Spaghetti, 19 October 2002
Author: Macholic from Copenhagen, Denmark, EU

I just rewatched "100 Rifles" and it is still a joy to watch, good actors and effective action makes this very spaghetti-like US western simmer, as well as a very sexy Raquel Welsh. Made 2 years before Leone made his "Duck You Sucker" and has a surprisingly lot of elements in common with it. A healthy dose of humor is also infused into this film. 7/10

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2 out of 2 people found the following review useful:
Burt Reynolds, Jim Brown, and Raquel Welch make a pretty good team in 100 Rifles, 30 January 2012

Author: tavm from Baton Rouge, La.

Burt Reynolds plays a half-breed who stole some money to buy the title amount of items for his people, Jim Brown is a sheriff pursuing him, and Requel Welch is a revolutionary having witnessed a hanging of a family member. All three eventually team up to defeat the Mexican general Fernando Lamas and his men for all the cruel acts they committed. With what I just described, this was quite entertaining what with all those action scenes, a steamy love scene, and Ms. Welch's assets almost exposed whenever her close-ups come on. Really, I don't have anything else to say except that 100 Rifles is worth a look for fans of the above players.

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2 out of 2 people found the following review useful:
good solid action not just for western fans, 29 November 2011

Author: trojans7 from Australia

this my not be the best western ever made but for my money this is a great action flick. the action has not dated to bad. this is an action movie with the next battle more a priority than plot or story. I'm not saying this is a bad thing because we have see umpteen storys of this type before, so what tom grimes is give us a solid action movie in a western setting.

as for the cast they are just outstanding, especially rachael. I'm a burt fan so he can't do no wrong but the surprise is big jim brown probably his best role. all the extras were good excluding some poor death scenes throughout but hay it is also a western and that comes with the territory.

100m rifles is truly worth seeing and the DVD look stunning a good transfer probably looks better than ever. if you have not watch a western before give it a go if your a western fan give it another go you will be surprised how well it has stood the test of time.

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