A Fistful of Dollars

Common sense missplaced this movie!!! This is a R Rated movie and it is ridiculous that is catalogued as rated as 11 years old. I watched this movie and it's bloody and violent. This is not for kids. Please check the movie, it deserves +16 rating. This is not Marvel neither Batmans or Harry Potter. It's more violent and bloody. And some of thoses movies are rated higher than 11 hear. Common place missplaced for error, sure

When I was a kid it felt like Leone spaghetti westerns were on all of the time in the afternoon on Saturdays or Sundays. I remember trying to watch them because there was nothing else on and feeling as if they were the most difficult films to watch because they were sooooooo sloooooooow. I was 7 and bored. Now I love the crap out of these soooo sloooow films and revel in their deliberateness. A Fistful of Dollars feels cheesier to me than I remember but maybe it's my giddy anticipation of A Few Dollars More and The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly that makes me more excited about this film. Also, it's Leone's version of Yojimbo and it very much shows.

The final duel is simply one of the tensest final scenes I've ever seen! But aside from it, the shootouts and gun fights are surprisingly boring, monotonous, and unvaried. One the other hand, the action and fight scenes that don't feature guns are so much fun, especially since Leone's style of camerawork and direction here are their best. I'm not exaggerating or anything; but A Fistful of Dollars really has some of the most inventive, and some of the coolest, camerawork and editing scenes I've seen in a Western film. I haven't seen Kurosawa's Yojimbo yet; but I really liked the story of this film. It's a story full of surprises, and twist and turns that kept me quite engaged and engrossed most of the time. While the movie has its slow parts, and the plot doesn't evolve very smoothly; it gets messy and muddled halfway through, A Fistful of Dollars's story never loses its track. The movie also feels somewhat heavy-handed at times, largely because the dialogue gets clumsy and overly expository at moments. I could have never imagined any actor who can be perfectly fit for this role as Clint Eastwood. He is as charismatic, bad-ass and tough as ever as the central character, Joe, and this was quite important, since this movie has this kind of story that focuses primarily on one protagonist (this is my favorite kind, btw). Overall, Per un pugno di dollari is yet another great Leone Western that makes me excited to keep exploring his small but very solid filmography. (8/10)

Gotta love the Eastwood westerns. What a fantastic preformance.

A western remake of the samurai movie Yojimbo, which in turn was a loose adaptation of the Dashiell Hammett novels "The Glass Key" and "Red Harvest". Gritty, but good. Fine for any age kid who is into westerns or action, maybe a bit higher if your child doesn't handle action well. It was Not Rated for its time, but today it would probably be stuck in the very wide PG-13 category. A more accurate rating would be PG, as it would have gotten back in the 80s/early 90s.

This film is more violent than it's rated here. Yes, there's not a lot of gore, but there is a lot of violent death, and particularly sadistic murders, with closeups of people laughing. There's sexual assault. This is not a movie for preteens.

This is one of the most bewildering CSM reviews. This movie is bloody, brutal and at times rather disturbing. There is a reason why it is rated MA15+ in Australia, a rating that indicates 14's and younger can only watch accompanied by a parent. Some 14's could handle it fine, but 15 is the only safe bet.

Although this is a very violent movie, I approved it for my 13 and 10 year old boys. Unlike most westerns, the main character was not out for revenge. He was obviously plotting two rival western gangs against each other to rid the town of them. A town whose innocent people had been tortured, murdered, and worse by these bullies. In this time and place in history there was no court or prison system; the only way to protect the innocent from evil-doers was to end the lives of the evil-doers. I believe "killing the bad guys" is only appropriate in a circumstance like this where victims can be protected in no other reasonable way. Also, unlike most westerns, there was a great respect for the personhood of women (and children and good men too). When the main character had the opportunity, he didn't even look at a vulnerable woman inappropriately, let alone lay a hand on her. Also, it shows another woman as valuable for being the person she is, as well as for her important roles as wife and mother in her family. The main character also protects a victim family with, potentially, his life, taking a severe beating and knowing he might die, but continues to keep the family protected. These things are very commendable as far as I'm concerned. There are some drawbacks, and it did take some conversation between my husband and I to determine if our boys could watch this. There is a little revenge at one point when he prolongs the death of a bad guy a little, but it's not as obvious of revenge again as in most westerns. The women's clothing is certainly low-cut, although I don't think they come across as provocative, but rather the style of the day. There is a LOT of mindless killing, although by the bad guys in order to show just how ruthless they are. There IS blood, despite what the Common Sense review says, though not much and it looks more like paint, and the "murderous suitor" DOES "lay and hand on her" - he kisses the captured woman. And it may be of concern to some parents that there is continuous smoking and a lot of drinking. Overall, I'm glad I previewed this. I had said "no" upon reading the Common Sense review, but decided to preview myself after the heartfelt pleading of my older son. :)