Review of The Mercenary

I realize this is a fairly short-sighted statement, but generally speaking you could say there exist only two types of spaghetti westerns… There are the ones dealing with lone and mysterious gunslingers traveling into small towns to extract some sort of vengeance, and the other ones dealing with the Mexican Revolution. Yours truly is definitely more in favor of the first group (and all of its variations), because they are more grim, filthy and realistic. Mexican Revolution westerns somehow always seem a bit tedious and are often also overly idealistic and drenched in a misfit kind of festive ambiance. Even a brilliant director like Sergio Corbucci (arguably as brilliant as that other Sergio; - Leone) has difficulties here to turn a Mexican Revolution scenario into a qualitative and compelling film. Corbucci delivered a few of the greatest genre efforts ever made, with "Django" and "The Great Silence", but they neatly fit into the first family of spaghetti westerns. The constraints in "The Mercenary" are the too banal plot, the fake and cartoonesque lead characters, the misplaced comedy and – worst of all – a vast shortage of mean- spirited and relentless violence! Franco Nero plays a Polish mercenary who cheerfully switches sides depending on who pays the most money. At first he's still transporting silver for a bunch of rich tycoons, but when the young rebel Guiseppe grabs the power, the mercenary is very quick to offer his services and teach the inexperienced and over-enthusiast lad how to become a fearsome revolutionary leader. Well, in exchange for a royal fee and lots of extras of course! Naturally there soon arise conflicts, for example when ideologies collide with fortune or – even more clichéd – when a beautiful Mexican fury woman walks into the scene. Franco Nero is great and reliable as ever, although pretending to look and speak Polish is not exactly the easiest role of his career. There's still a reasonably vivid chemistry between him and rebel leader Paco Roman. The most entertaining sequences, however, are the confrontations between our duo and the eccentric American gangster Curly. As depicted by the still underrated Jack Palance, Curly is a kind of megalomaniac and homosexual psycho.

PS: Of course there are some really great spaghetti westerns about the Mexican Revolution, like "Bullet for the General", "Run Man Run" and Corbucci's very own "Vamos a Matar, Compañeros".