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¡Mátalo! More at IMDbPro »

4 out of 4 people found the following review useful:
MATALO! (Cesare Canevari, 1970) ***, 31 March 2007

Author: MARIO GAUCI (marrod@melita.com) from Naxxar, Malta

This one emerges an outstanding, if eccentric, Spaghetti Western which certainly gives that notorious genre effort DJANGO, KILL...IF YOU LIVE, SHOOT! (1967) a run for its money in the weirdness stakes!

Though simply enough plotted - with the script itself admirably laconic - and effectively set (for the most part) in a ghost town, it's essentially a mood-piece: stylized to a fault, the film features virtuoso camera-work and bold editing throughout; still, the general tone - buoyed by the remarkable experimental electro-rock sounds created by one Mario Migliardi - is effortlessly hypnotic.

The cast is equally interesting: Spaghetti Western regular Lou Castel as the unlikely hero (who, admitting to be unskilled at handling guns, utilizes boomerangs for weaponry during the body-strewn climax!); Corrado Pani - surely one of the genre's most idiosyncratic villains - brings a topical, i.e. late 1960s, touch of hippiedom to the Old West (the film is, however, thankfully free of the politics which informed many latter-day similar efforts)! Incidentally, both these top-billed stars are off-screen for an inordinate length of time - thus allowing Claudia Gravy, the luscious female lead, to take centre-stage (no complaints there!).

Pani's sidekicks, then, are equally colorful: one is Gravy's current lover, who assumes leadership of the gang after Pani's untimely 'exit' early on, and the other a sadist who covets the girl (though she continually rejects his advances). In fact, for a film of its type, there's an unusual emphasis on sex here - as much to the fore, I'd say, as the violence...which is present in quite graphic fashion (the sadistic outlaw beats Castel repeatedly with a chain, but he later has his own hand trampled by horse's hooves!).

Regrettably, the film is only available on DVD in an English-dubbed version through Wild East; the fact that the original language is not included would normally be enough to dissuade me from acquiring it (in spite of an accompanying Lou Castel interview which ought to be interesting) - but my recent unhappy experience with Wild East's edition of another Spaghetti Western title, THE MAN FROM NOWHERE (1966), certainly doesn't help make a case for it...

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