Save your money for something good and enjoyable

Powerful

Entertaining from beginning to end, it maintains the spirit of the franchise while establishing it's own seal with a fun cast

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

Franco Nero is as cool as he's ever been, in the role of the title character. Sergei Kowalski is a Polish scoundrel who tends to only look out for number one - and make a couple of dollars in the process. He makes the acquaintance of Paco Roman (Tony Musante), a peasant tired of mistreatment who assumed the role of revolutionary. They are subsequently united in many episodic adventures as they scheme to rob a bank of silver to fund Pacos' movement. Working against them are characters such as Alfonso Garcia (Eduardo Fajardo), and Curly (Jack Palance), a rival who turns bitter and vengeful."The Mercenary" is considered by some to be one of the finest Spaghetti Westerns ever made, and this viewer would have to agree. It manages the neat trick of combining action, comedy, and drama, without ever getting too maudlin, silly, or gory. Both Musante and the fiery, incredibly sexy Giovanna Ralli supply the necessary humanity in a story often hinging on the differences between the Pollack and the freedom fighter. Paco has found a cause bigger than his own personal comfort, but Kowalski remains mostly concerned with financial gain. Special guest star Palance is very funny; sporting an appropriately curly, ridiculous looking wig, he's good for a number of chuckles. He also bares his backside for the camera, in a comic dose of nudity. Nero is priceless as a man who always uses what's available to strikes matches for his cigarettes, and who continues "billing" Musante for services during a gun battle.The fact that this story uses the Mexican revolution as a backdrop allows for some political / social commentary, as it did for various other Italian oaters that did the same thing. It also boasts typically wonderful Ennio Morricone music and splendid widescreen photography by Alejandro Ulloa.A fine film with subtly poignant moments and a resolution that will leave a smile on ones' face.Eight out of 10.

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".

"A Professional Gun" (aka, "The Mercenary") is an oddly paced film that is mostly enjoyable--but highly uneven. Some aspects of the movie are quite good (such as the Ennio Morricone score) but the plot itself often seems contradictory and confusing. Mostly, the motivations and behaviors of Franco Nero's character make little sense and change almost randomly.The film begins with a small-time bandit (Tony Musante) in revolutionary Mexico (about 1915). He talks about 'the revolution' but mostly is just a leader of some opportunistic thugs. When he meets up with a cool mercenary (Nero), he pays through the nose to have the mercenary tutor him on warfare. As the film progresses, the bandit slowly evolves into a revolutionary hero, whereas the mercenary seems interested in one thing--money. But, as I said above, this guy's motivations inexplicably change--and this change left me cold. It just seemed formulaic and nothing in the film seemed to explain this change. In addition, a smaller and somewhat unrelated subplot involving a nasty Jack Palance is sprinkled throughout the film.A few things to look for in the film include Nero's revolver that shoots SEVEN times when he's taking a shower as well as Palance's butt. Not a brilliant and occasionally a confusing film--but enjoyable nonetheless provided you don't try to think too much as you watch.Finally, the casting is ironic. Musante plays a Mexican, while he's American born and bred. Nero plays a Polish-American, while he's an Italian!

An Mexican outlaw, with the help of a hired Polish gunslinger go out to make an massive rebellious army to take back what they believe is an poorly treated Mexico that is run by crooked and rich upper-class folk. So now they are part of the growing revolution, but the two men seem to have their ups and downs on who really is in-charge here, as the Mexican peasant actually relies on the European cowboy most the time. While, the army might be on the rebels' tails, but also too is another gunslinger that has a score to settle with the two men.I don't know how long I've had this for, but I nearly missed the opportunity of watching this more than decent spaghetti western. Basically I recorded it off TV some time back onto a blank DVD, which I was going to use, until I realised that this flick was ready to go. Phew, lucky I decided to check it before erasing it. Also after the opening credits the film actually went black and dead quiet for 3 minutes or so, and I was thinking maybe I wasn't meant to see it, but that was short-lived and I was back right into it. Anyhow, away from my pointless ramble "The Mercenary" which is first I've seen of any Corbucci's films was an exciting gung-ho spaghetti western that doesn't let up on the violence and colourful characters. Although the violence isn't terribly graphic and sometimes it happens off screen, but these minor glitches don't take away anything from it. The actual characters might be hard to like as they come across as incredibly greedy and downright blood thirsty for violence. Which I say isn't too much of a bad thing for this type of flick, because that's one of the draw cards of this sub-genre, but it's just that the characters are expendable to it, well maybe not Franco Nero's easy going character. Sergio Corbucci direction is the key also because the story isn't planned out with any real sort of purpose but just to stage one comical scene or action packed moment. But at least those moments actually worked to make you forget the plot's shortcomings. Plus it was jokier than I thought it would be. From that point it did kind of reminded me of Leone's 'The Good, the bad and the Ugly', that was because of the buddy humour that they played around with and like another reviewer mentioned Paco Roman did have an uncanny nature to that of Taco from GTBTU. Other than that, you can see other influences from the dollar trilogy evident too. For me Nero's gunslinger has a striking resemblance and steady persona to that of Eastwood's character of Dollar trilogy and the showdown in a bullring you could think the same too. But that's enough about that.What else it has going for it is the great and thunderous score that you come to expect by the ever-reliable Ennio Morricone and the cinematography gets some dynamic treatment. The script is filled with cynical humour and leaden dialog on that of the rich and poor, and how greed can blind you to true intentions. There an over abundance of sharp and witty replies and that's especially between Kowalski, Paco and Columba. The three leads Franco Nero, Tony Musante and Giovanna Ralli as ever gusty but beautiful Columba put in exceptional performances and Jack Palance as Ricciolo 'Curly' the gunfighter on the trail of the group brings the added venom to the villain role, but I thought he was vastly under-used and his agenda with Kowalski would've made for more interest than what is given. We're thrown right into this baroque western with the backdrop splashing off the screen with such exuberant touches of flair and gusto. Corbucci paces the film swiftly by making it more compelling and surprising the further along it went, without letting you doze off because of some well stage scenes like a bank heist, bombing of an Mexican town and the final shootout. Actually it would be hard to doze off with the loud sound effects and bellowing score. Even so just when you think its finished and the climax feels like it came too early, there's even more to come afterwards. Overall, Corbucci takes advantage of this good rolling adventure, even if it does lack some sort of killer punch or impact to make it overly memorable and grand. But nonetheless it's swell escapism fun that's bursting at the seams with madness, double crossings, plentiful violence, promising performances and grit.It's a more than decent way to the past time with. I see 'Companeros (1970)' gets praised a lot, so it looks another to hit my must-see list.