Details: Released in 1964. About an hour and forty minutes long. Directed by Sergio Leone. Stars Clint Eastwood, Gian Maria Volontè, Marianne Koch.
Of the three Sergio Leone westerns, I’d say The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly is the best, For A Few Dollars More is the worst, and A Fistful of Dollars is in the middle. This is a good movie and has a lot of what I enjoyed from The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, except they fit it into an hour and forty minute run-time versus a three hour run-time.
Details: Released in 1965. Over two hours long. Directed by Sergio Leone. Stars Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef, Gian Maria Volontè.
My favorite movie of all time is The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, which is another spaghetti western from Sergio Leone. For a movie so old, I was blown away by how contemporary it was… and how much it was like shounen anime. There’s this constant question about whose the strongest and hyper-machismo and other common anime themes. For a Few Dollars More is another film from the Sergio Leone spaghetti western trilogy and I finally decided to sit down and watch it in its entirety.
For a Few Dollars More is a story about two bounty hunter who are trying to catch a gang of killers and thieves. It’s not as good as The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, but it’s okay. It’s got the same tone and two of the same actors. There’s also your genre familiar gun fights, machismo, and standoffs.
Overall, I enjoyed it, but I think it could be skipped. It didn’t keep my attention too well.
Score: 6.4/10
Details: Released in 2008. Directed by Clint Eastwood and written by Nick Schenk and Dave Johannson. Stars Clint Eastwood, Bee Vang, Christopher Carley. About two hours long.
I think what impressed me most about this movie was the sheer number of racial slurs and prejudiced insults that were used in it. A lot of these insults I had never heard before. I mean it’s mostly Asian slurs, with a little black, Jewish, Italian, and Irish thrown in. There was also a line or two insulting gays. If you don’t like racial slurs, especially if they’re said about your type of people, then you might want to avoid this movie.
However, I think you can still enjoy this movie even if you belong to one of the groups insulted by it. I did some internet research after watching the film because I wanted to know just how accurate the portrayal of the Hmong people were. Turns out, not very. The screenplay was written by a white guy sitting in a bar at night when he wasn’t working his day job. As per a number of articles, a lot of things were exaggerated and overdramatized to help convey the culture clash upon which the crux of the story relies upon. One example is that the names of the Hmong characters were all originally Chinese and had to be changed by the Hmong actors themselves to reflect their ethnicity. The insults… are gratuitous. It’s very possible the people behind this film wanted to deliver some choice words about minorities while hiding under creative license. My point is this: this film is fiction. It’s not even based on a true story. This film should not be used as a good example of how to treat people, even if you think you have a heart of gold. If you find everything said in this film completely okay… then you’re probably delusional, self-absorbed, a racist, or just a piece of shit. Regardless, if you can accept the fact that this film is not real nor does it accurately reflect on reality, then watching the film may be enjoyable to you even if it insults you.
Anyways, the film is about an old war veteran whose wife just passed away. Finding himself alone, he now tries to reconcile his own culture with that of his neighbors as much of the neighborhood has become Hmong (an ethnicity from east and south Asia). Specifically, he tries to help out a teenage boy living next door who is involved with the local gangs.
There are a number of things working in the film. As said above, there is that cultural clash that tries to introduce a foreign culture and show that it’s okay even if it is different. If you can ignore the reality that the Hmong were actually inaccurately portrayed in the film for dramatic purposes, then it’s a good, morally satisfying theme. I will concede that it is a vital point in this film that the culture of the neighbors be foreign and strange and that they be some kind of Asian because Eastwood’s character fought in the Korean War so that Eastwood’s character can get over whatever trauma was caused by the war.
The primary relationship in this film concerns Eastwood’s character trying to mentor this Hmong teenager. He teaches him some skills, shoots the shit, and tries to get him a girlfriend. It’s your classic sensei-student relationship except that it’s told mostly from the mentor’s perspective, not the student.
There’s definitely a feeling of realism in the film, like they stripped away any acting tips to over-emote, except for Eastwood’s character and the priest. I read somewhere that most of the Asian actors were first timers and were hurried along through their scenes. I don’t know if that was to make them seem more natural or more foreign, but it works.
Overall, a pretty good film that’s kind of excessive with the insults. I get that Eastwood’s this grizzled, old veteran which is why he says all he says, but this kind of character’s been done before with a lot less racism. Instead of just telling a good story, it felt like those behind the film (or at least the writers) simply got their jollies by writing in as many racist insults as they could even though it was mostly unnecessary to the story. At least it had an okay theme of tolerance… even if that idea was lubricated with more Asian slurs than I knew existed.
Score: 6/10
Details: About an hour and a half long. Directed by Clint Eastwood. Stars Tom Hanks and Aaron Eckhart. Released in 2016.
As I watched this movie, I could practically imagine the exact conversation that took place when they decided to finance and make this movie. It probably went something like this:
“This amazing thing has happened. Captain Sully is an American hero and he landed a plane in the Hudson River. Sully landed a plane in a city with a horrible history of airplanes. and he saved all one hundred and fifty-five passengers on board. No deaths. We can make some money off of this. We need the movie rights for this. Sully seems like a nice guy. We could probably get the rights from him and the rest of the passengers for a song and a dance. Hey, they might even appear at the end, make everyone feel good about the movie they just watched.
“So who will we get to direct? Anyone have the number for Clint Eastwood? He loves directing this American hero shit. We could probably get a discount on his fee. Now whose going to star? Well you know we got to get America’s favorite every-man, Tom Hanks. I mean he doesn’t have any range, but he’s perfect for these relatable, middle-aged white guy roles. After that shitty Walt Disney movie and Captain Philips, this seems right up Tom’s alley. Let’s just make sure we find some half decent supporting actor to help him along, maybe Aaron Eckhart since I just had a phone call with his agent yesterday. With Clint and Tom in the movie, the movie practically pays for itself. People will watch anything with those guys in it.
“As for budget, about sixty million sounds good. Most of it will go to Clint and Tom, but their the ones selling the movie so whatever. This doesn’t need to be an expensive movie. Just some interior scenes with no name actors.
“And lastly and least importantly, what’s our plot? Well we got to show the plane landing in Hudson. And yes, that whole thing happened in about a couple of minutes. Even evacuating the passengers took only twenty-four minutes. My goodness, there really isn’t a lot of conflict there or a lot of story. Ah well, I’ll go down to my local Starbucks and find some random screenwriter to stretch it out somehow. I’m sure we can get an hour and a half out of this thing.”
End imaginary quote.
In my opinion, this movie was pretty silly. It was mainly Hollywood’s attempt to monetize a pat on the back for Sully. They tried to introduce some conflict with an insurance inquiry, but that clearly fizzled out if you kept track of what happened to Sully in real life. There was a clip at the end of the actual Captain Sully and the passengers having an emotional moment. That minute of footage could probably have replaced the whole movie, but then the makers of this movie wouldn’t have been as successful milking money out of this cow.
Score: 5/10 Not a bad movie, just pointless with no real conflict. I would’ve preferred a documentary. This would probably be a good airplane movie if it wasn’t about a plane crashing.
Details: Directed by Clint Eastwood. A war film starring Bradley Cooper. Run time is over two hours.
This is Hurt Locker, except its about snipers instead of bomb disposal. And it’s directed by Clint Eastwood. Oh, it stars Bradley Cooper instead of Jeremy Renner. Otherwise, fairly similar tone, themes, plot progression.
I know there is some controversy around the film, but it feels artificial. Like a guy doing marketing for the film is trying to gather attention. No real controversy here. Just another war movie. Regardless, decent film with some emotion and a few good action scenes.
Score: 7/10 It’s Hurt Locker, with snipers. Sort of.
Edit: After thinking about it, there is a bigger difference in this film from Hurt Locker. In Hurt Locker, the protagonist is an adrenaline junky that likes going to war. Here, the protagonist suffers from regret and PTSD from the war. The two films have opposite themes.
Muse Bank 