Le Sanguinaire... le roublard... le vicieux

You'll hear that line at least 50 times in this movie, typically from the character Lucky Gomez (Keith G. van der Wat).

Not that I'm knocking "Three Bullets for a Long Gun" because it's a pretty impressive quasi-Spaghetti Western. I say "quasi" because it's actually a South African Western, which is where it was shot. Speaking of which, some of the locations and cinematography are spectacular. In any case, the movie has the tone of a Spaghetti Western and is obviously a knock-off of 1966's "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly," albeit only half as long (which is a good thing). Lucky Gomez is essentially the Tuco character; Beau Brummell plays the Blondie role, simply named "Major;" and Patrick Mynhardt plays the "bad" character, Hawkeye or One-Eye. Like in Sergio Leone's Western, these three are vying for a treasure the entire movie, in this case hidden in a mine somewhere.

Despite the fact that "The Good, the Bad and the Ugly" was used as a blueprint, this is an effective and unique enough film to make it worthwhile; that is, if you like Spaghetti Westerns (I generally don't). Beau Brummell is great in the Eastwood role, laconic and ultra cool, whereas Keith G. is competent in the Tuco role as a sorta likable lout. Some say Keith's stereotypical performance gives Mexicans a bad name. Yeah, like Tuco didn't? Besides, Keith is playing ONE character, not representing an entire nation of people and, furthermore, his performance rings true, not of all Mexicans but of A Mexican in THIS story, if you know what I mean. Beau and Keith incidentally wrote the screenplay.

The problem with "Three Bullets for a Long gun" is the flaw with most Spaghetti Westerns -- the protagonists are one-dimensional and amoral and therefore uninteresting. As such, the story is boring, which it partially makes up for with a creative early-70s score, albeit no where near as good as Ennio Morricone's; they even throw in a wannabe radio-hit in the middle of the film à la "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" with "Rain Drops Keep Falling on My Head;" furthermore, the film has loads of style and a few beautiful women in minor roles.

So "Three Bullets for a Long Gun" is a quality South African Western in the "Man with No Name" mode, creative and hip, but also derivative. It's too bad that they didn't include characters or a story that would interest the viewer.

The film's currently only available on VHS

GRADE: C+

This brutal, chaotic pseudo-spaghetti western, which steals large plot pieces from Leone's IL BUONO IL BRUTTO, IL CATTIVO adds absolutely nothing to the genre except the odd conceit that South Africa is a good stand-in for the American southwest -- well, I suppose if Spain and Italy are supposed to do the job, South Africa might as well. The talent involved is also mostly obscure, their accents slipping now and again and the plot, such as it is, stops frequently for acts of brutality.

Struggling to find something positive about the film, I will admit that the compositions are competently framed, but the use of color in this film is largely a conceit, as little color manages to survive the prints except for browns.

This one is not even bad enough to be interesting. Give it a miss.