Beyond the Frontiers of Hate

Usually with the European westerns you get grit, bravery, pushing boundaries, full of character and above all else they are entertaining. I'm afraid this one falls short after a bright start (first fifteen minutes or so). The film seems like it is trying too hard to be a squeaky clean American western but fails at either.

A family are cut down by tribal Native Americans and a young boy and his sister survive, the boy joins up with the army? (Not sure what they ae suppose to be) While the girl Loana (Stefania Nelli) is raised by Native Americans. This is the beginning and the end of the plot really, I was lost half the time, didn't know who was suppose to be who and found it a boring enough journey.

Apart from the story, the acting isn't great and the camera work is very annoying, sometimes crisp and clear, while other times shoddy. Yes I know it is a low budget movie, but keeping it consistent, even if that means making it all poor quality makes it a more enjoyable experience. I'm not sure were they going for humour in their portrayal of the Native Americans, because it is offensive, like a cross between Sesame Street and Blazing Saddles "Waka Waka."

If you are a fan of the spag-ball genre, approach this with caution, you may find it boring, on the otherhand it does have enough accidental humour to keep you some what entertained even though you won't have a clue what's going on. Oh, the cover picture with the bandit and the gun is top notch.

For the cheesemeisters: "Waka Waka."

Two kids survive the massacre of their family, made by a group of vindicative Indians. The boy enlists in the confederated army, the girl is kidnapped by the Indians. Casually the two meet some years after; and he realizes the pointlessness of war and of the resentment for the American natives. One of the worst westerns ever. A quite invisible budget production. A story - conceived by the director and Bruno Vani (who later on will try to recycle himself in the porn industry ("Angelina superporno", 1982) - so much melodramatic and politically correct to become grotesquely ridiculous. A terrible photography by Gaetano Valle - who was a valid camera operator - who pretend to defend himself telling that the movie was "so much poor [...] just made to do something." The direction of Alessandro Santini is completely non-existent; at the point that the movie seems to grow up by itself, degenerating frame by frame. Elsio Mancuso's score is just pretty annoying. In the end the acting is more than embarrassing and the cast made by totally unknowns - with the exception of a couple of names like Marco Zuanelli ("Once Upon a Time in the West", 1968 by Sergio Leone) and the protagonist Jeff Cameron, stolen from the grade-Z pictures by Demofilo Fidani. It could have been a must-see for the bad movies connoisseurs, but the lack of action and the general ugliness of the plot induce more to sleeping and/or irritability, than to laughter, though unintentional. Frankly, it's truly difficult do something worse.

Mostly spaghetti western often was underpinned for bizarre characters and far-fetched story, this minor movie starts in these old concepts, a massive blowouts in opening is quite contrived, exposing a decoy at first sight, soon the movie became a slow paced action, interesting that the mains characters weren't a white men usually, overral the plot is focused in the brave young Indian warrior Running Deer (Jeff Cameron), the plot starts with a settler's family who were killed by a Indian raid, just survives a boy and the girl was kidnapped by the natives and raised by Black Cloud the Chief, later already a girl Loana (Stefania Nelli) was promised to marry with Running Deer, meanwhile the tensions grows up between the Calvary and the Indians stuck in a small reservation, actually the Loana's brother serves the US's Army, after a battle against the Indians he was catch and stays a little while recovering at Indians's tribe, Loana finds in his neck the same collar that she had, then he realizes that man possibly is your brother, seems simple and usual, but has some qualities, the final is plenty acceptable, actually an anti-war movie, not so bad as described by the above reviewer!!!

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First watch: 2020 / How many: 1 / Source: DVD-R / Rating: 5.5