We Have Issues
By greigzilla
December 20, 2024
While the weird and wonderful world of Spaghetti Westerns can understandably be rather a niche and confusing place thanks to each film often owning a multitude of conflicting titles, dubbing that makes a Japanese monster movie seem subtle and a sense of eccentricity that often has you wondering if the filmmakers are simply taking the piss, I’m rather confused that the Sartana series isn’t more well known. For a start, there’s sense of campy fun about the gunslinger’s unlikely adventures that sit just on the right side of ridiculous and if nothing else, the franchise complete with five (official) entries that all own pulpy titles so flamboyant, they fuck harder than a bionic horse.
The first entry set the tone with the absurdly muscular
moniker of If You Meet Sartana Pray For Your Death, but barely a year later,
Gianni Garko returned in I Am Sartana Your Angel Of Death, which seemed like a
good sign that the caped gunslinger wasn’t intending to tone down his act…
A seemingly quiet day is suddenly interrupted with the sound of gunfire, when a remarkably prepared gang robs a bank of $300,000. However, when I say prepared, I don’t just mean that these guys have studied the opening times, no, their plans involve misdirection, ambushes, some of the gang being disguised as soldiers and even a man pretending to play dead into order to claim a reward and the reasons for all this subterfuge seems to be that the man behind this robbery is notorious gunslinging tricker, Sartana! Of course, as often is the case in Sartana adventures, things aren’t all that they seem and even though the leader of the heist dressed like Sartana and claimed he was Sartana, the real Sartana isn’t best pleased that a fair amount of identity theft occured along with the stealing of $300,000.
So, with the desire to clear his name and possibly earn some money into the bargin, Sartana plays detective, back tracking to question witnesses about exactly what they saw, but whomever was responsible wasn’t about to take any chances as the mysterious ringleader shot all the members of his crew in order to make a clean getaway. However, this isn’t the only roadblock in our enigmatic leads way as he has to carry out his flamboyant investigation while the bounty of $10,000 hangs above his head that tends to bring some unwanted attention.
Among some of the shifty characters on Sartana’s trail
are the opportunistic Shadow, intimidating old acquaintance Deguejo and the
frankly camp Hot Dead, a man who manages to balance out how shitty his is at
gambling by being great at bounty hunting. However, Sartana’s not exactly a
slouch in the brains department, and with quick-shooting vagrant Buddy Ben by
his side, our slippery hero manages to avoid certain death thanks to a mixture
of traps, tricks and, in the most extreme cases, close up magic.
Like a lot of Sergio Leone also-rans, the second Sartana flick strives to combine as many aspects familiar to the Spaghetti Western as is humanly possible but at a far more exagerated rate which tends to cause a notable slide toward self-parody. However, while I Am Sartana Your Angel Of Death frequently steps a shined cowboy boot into the cowpat of ridicule, it manages to maintain its pulp credentials nicely by taking the usual themes and visuals of the genre and channeling them through the lens of a conspiracy thriller/whodunit. For example, the whole mess kicks off when someone thinks it’s a good idea to hinge an entire bank robbery on framing a man known across the land as a fiercely intelligent and determined killer. It’s not even that foolproof of a disguise as the subterfuge only requires the guilty party to wear a hat and cloak and happily say “I’m Sartana” to anyone who will listen, but unbelievably it actually works as the bank staff of Spaghetti Westerns tend to be about as smart and levelheaded as the average Simpsons character. Maybe it wouldn’t have been so easy to successfully frame Sartana if he wasn’t so dashingly enigmatic that giving off smoldering, knowing looks seems to be his entire personality, but mysterious gunslingers are as mysterious gunslingers do and why spend time with the logistics when we can just let our hero off the chain to get to the bottom of this confusing mess.
Thus a stoney faced, returning, Gianni Garko returns to alternate between impassively out shooting large amounts of the cast (often at the same time) and looking righteously smug when one of his overly complex tricks manages to bamboozle an enemy. However, since original director Gianfranco Parolini had moved on to the similarly far fetched Sabata series, Giuliano Carnimeo, helmer of The Case Of The Bloody Iris and, er, Ratman, stepped in to call the shots with a noticably lighter touch. When Sartana isn’t escaping by MacGyvering his smug ass out of a jail cell with some stolen keys with a cowboy hat on a string, he’s utterly flummoxing hardened bounty hunters by fluttering some playing cards at them; but even though you know long in advance that every speed bump our hero faces is only a double feint that he’s somehow planned way in advance, it’s still somehow greatly satisfying everytime he does it. The man has some fucking style too, taking his vengence to hilarious, gothic extremes in a climax that sees him ducking around a dusty church, flinging an unlimited number of knives into the ribs of countless villains while his dishevelled buddy, Buddy Ben, plays an ominous tune on an organ like our antagonist is the phantom of the fucking saloon or something.
Thankfully, the movie realises that a stern, monosyllabic gunfighter who is a complete stranger to any sort of comeuppance is only as good as his wacky supporting cast and so we have a string of random bounty hunters, sidekicks and wild cards thrown in to keep the story ricocheting all over the place to the point where it’s almost impossible to follow. While many are merely single serving psychos and expendable henchmen, standouts include Frank Wolff’s affable tramp, Buddy Ben who seems to have Sartana’s back for… reasons; but almost stealing the show is the exceedingly strange Hot Dead who is played by the exceedingly stranger Klaus Kinski – again, a veteran of the Sartana saga after playing a completely different (and noticably dead) charscter in the previous film. A weird, needlessly gleeful goblin of a man, his whole deal is that he is a fucking terrible gambler who nevertheless cannot stop betting on literally everything; however, the silver lining is that he is a chillingly gifted bounty hunter that kills outlaws to fund his uttedly pathetic habit. In fact there’s numerous times where you kind of wish that Kinski was the main villain instead of whoever the hell it ends up being (I lost track in all the gunfire)
Admittedly silly, I Am Sartana Your Angel Of Death, is still undoubtedly huge fun for those who like their pulp adventures served up with a heaping side dish of chuckle inducing camp; but maybe that’s the real con here. Maybe when we’re dropping belly laughs at him rolling wagon wheels stuffed with dynamite at his enemies, Sartana is actually bamboozling us; tricking us into having fun with the same type of razzle dazzle he often fucks over his foes with.
Oh Sartana, you sly bastard.
No comments:
Post a Comment