On m'appelle Alleluia

Any film with a title as memorable and eye-catching as "Heads You Die, Tails I Kill You" has a lot to live up to. Luckily this one does.... well, for the first half at least.

The story centres around George Hilton's character named "Halleluyah" (thus the films alternative title "They Call Me Hallelujah"). He has been hired by Mexican general Ramirez (Roberto Camardiel) to steal jewels from the army, allegedly to help fund the revolution.

The beginning of the movie is very strong, as Ramirez is led to the firing line by the army, to Ciprani's fantastic score. Some onlookers are already grieving, but proceedings are intervened when Halleluyah appears with his very novel machine gun. Great stuff.

The plot has more twists and turns than, ummmmm, a very twisty turney thing! It is not just Halleluyah searching for the jewels, but a secret agent disguised as a Nun (Agata Flori), the Russian Alexei (Charles Southwood) and a gang of arms dealers led by Fortune (Paulo Gozlino).

Whilst the movie is a real roller-coaster of a ride, it does reach new levels of stupidity with the introduction of Alexei. As I said at the beginning of this write up, the film doesn't disappoint - it just (in my opinion) has one eccentric character too many. This makes the second half just a bit too farcical to me at times.

Most of the best scenes are based around Halleluyah's interaction with the gang - particularly near the beginning where disguised as monks they successfully steal the jewels (and soon face a confrontation with "Brother" Hallelujah). There is also a hilarious scene in which our hero poisons the gang's food, resulting in much belly ache and diarrhoea enforced swift exists! As far as the cast are concerned, Hilton makes a good leading man for the less serious westerns. Regular spaghetti stalwart Federico Boido is also well cast as the weasel like gang member Slocum.

I would definitely recommend this film (despite my reservations about the Russian!). It is a well plotted, good fun view, with enough double crosses and twists to keep you interested and entertained throughout.