Ostensibly harmless thieves Van Cleef and his partners in crime (ex-boxer Hoosman and veteran supporting actor Stander) find themselves unwitting protagonists in the plight of a mining town when no-nonsense bandit Mitchell (in Zorro-esque garb) takes the town's women and children hostage in exchange for the town's rich silver deposits.
Essentially a lighthearted buddy-picture until the darker turn emerges late in the story when Mitchell's thugs emerge as the real villains, and conscience gets the better of Van Cleef's character.
In addition to the aforementioned trio, Sicilian heart-throb Sabato plays a young mining official trying to convince Van Cleef of his innate goodness, the attractive Granata is the town's most-eligible bachelorette and prospective future wife to Van Cleef if he can stay clean, and a bare-faced Bud Spencer also appears as the mining boss, momentarily unrecgonisable sans his trademark beard.
Aside from the sometimes melodramatic pace, I personally wasn't a fan of the rather gloomy conclusion which seemed a mean-spirited way to resolve matters when a more sympathetic ending beckoned. But it wasn't meant to be, and consequently this uneven spaghetti western is hard to like in spite of its initially good intentions.
