Andere beten - Django schießt

As an enthusiastic fan of Italian Westerns I must say that I was quite bored with Sergio Garrone's "Se Vuoi Vivere... Spara" aka. "If You Want To Live... Shoot" of 1968 (which is, by the way, not to be confused with Giulio Questi's brilliant and surreal "Se Sei Vivo Spara" aka. "Django Kill, If You Live Shoot!" of 1967 with the great Tomas Milian in the lead). I'm generally not the biggest fan of Sergio Garrone's Westerns, but I admit that films like "Django The Bastard" certainly have their qualities. Furthermore, I haven't seen Garrone's "No Room To Die" yet, which is supposed to be great.

In "If You Want To Live... Shoot", however, the boredom unfortunately outweighs the qualities. As many other low-budget Spaghetti Westerns this was absolutely inappropriately given a 'Django' title in German speaking countries. Unlike most of the other unofficial 'sequels' to Sergio Corbucci's 1966 masterpiece "Django", however, "If You Want To Live... Shoot" doesn't even have a real antihero. This Django, who is played by Ivan Rassimov, is more of a typical good guy. An absolutely cheesy love story and Django's relationship to a family of farmers even take this film further away from the typical Spaghetti Western feeling.

Nevertheless, "Se Vuoi Vivere... Spara" is not a complete failure. The score is pretty good (but far from great). The film also has some cool, brutal moments. But then again, the film's boring and cheesy parts outweigh the good ones, and the film's 97 minutes seem very long. The movie is at least 20 minutes too long, they just should have left out all the sentimental family stuff, which seems horribly out of place in a Spaghetti Western.

All things considered "If You Want To Live... Shoot" is not completely awful, but it's definitely quite boring and a disappointment for a fan of Italian Westerns.