Better Late Then Never

It was OK. I don't see why everyone loves it so much. It wasn't very smart or deep or well-directed.

Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

Beautifully photographed, this Brazilian variation on the western is a strange mix. On the positive sides the images are very striking, and there are scenes of emotional intensity and violence, especially around the film's climax that are amazingly well staged and acted. On the other hand, there's not a lot of depth to any of the characters or their motivations. They're more archetypes than full people. (It also falls into that cliché of the better looking an actor is, the better human being his character is.) Certainly that's common in this genre, but it doesn't mean I have to like it. The story is nothing that new. Yet it's presented with a fierceness and focus that makes it very watchable. These bandit anti-heroes are hard men with hard hearts. Their violence is still disturbing, even by modern standards.The much discussed music fell on both sides of the fence to me. The score, which includes a lot of songs, is sometimes quite a haunting partner to the striking images. But at other times, when the group of bandits whose story this is fall into singing and dancing in ways that feel more akin to a musical than a gritty, violent western, the effect was odd and disconcerting, almost unintentionally comic. But that might just be a cultural bias - it took me a while to get used to the musical numbers in Bollywood films, for example.Overall, this was a film I was glad I got to see, and would like to see again for its imagery. Also, now that I understand its style, some of the cultural quirks would be less likely to throw me off balance.

I saw this movie as an adolescent in the 60es just once on TV, but it still is one of only a handful which surface at least once every five years. As other reviewers have pointed out before, the great music by Zé do Norte was a major factor for this memorability. Foremost here is the ballad "Mulher Rendeira" (The Lacemaker), especially in the unforgettable scene when the gang rides in a duck line along a ridge which is set against the dusk sky and the gloomy grandeur of the Brazilian Sertao. In their leather garments, pepped up by the symbolism of amulets and talismans, the bandidos in this movie resemble an archaic tribe living in this land of dust and thorns for eons already. The movie is filmed in black and white which is lending it a certain kind of credibility reminding of a documentary. Although presenting a different plot, Barreto's movie was obviously inspired by the fate of the most famous couple of Brazilian cangaceiros, Lampiao and his wife Maria Bonita, who were killed in 1938 with seven others of their gang by the police.

I saw this film at the Carnegie Cinema in NYC 50 years ago and still remember it. It was beautifully filmed. Aside from the plot, the background music, O Canganceiro which is played as an instrumental and choral is absolutely haunting. The female lead was exceptionally beautiful. As I recall, the film was a minor sensation at the time, but has since disappeared into the mists of history. Too bad. Is it available anywhere today?(the 10 line minimum doesn't make sense. Why should I be forced to pad my comments when brevity is the soul of wit. This was a simple film,that doesn't require complex, "filomatic" critical comment!)

This film was the first brazilian production exhibited internationally after receive a prize of Best Music at a Cannes Film Festival. It was distributed accross the world by Columbia Pictures and was very successful at the box office.I understand why foreign audiences still enjoy it, but for us brazilians it's very artificial when the hero leaves the semi arid background where the bandits live and penetrates a deep jungle to fight a jaguar etc, since those geographical regions are separated by hundred and hundred miles, like Arizona from Oregon. Anyway the music is amazing as the photography and the actor who plays captain Galdino ( Milton Ribeiro ). I believe that the main influence of director Lima Barreto was not the american westerns as most of people say, but the mexican films of Emilio Fernandez like "Enamorada". "O cangacero" is a good film, even if not not a great one and deserves the fame it has.