Kill Them All and Come Back Alone

If you like cheese the chance is great that you watched one of the movies of Enzo G. Castellari without knowing or remembering his name - like every good Italian director in the 60s up to the 80s he directed a lot of different movies in different genres - be it war, horror, adventure, sci-fi, or some Spaghetti western. A broader audience outside of Italy may know such "gems" like Striker or The New Barbarians among a few others. Ammazzali tutti e torna solo (Kill Them All and Come Back Alone) is one of this contributions to the Western genre and a fun one: a solid production, some well known faces of B-movies of that era and a lot of shooting and killing. The story is a kind of commando movie set in the time of the Civil War in the USA spiced up with some humor and cool guys on the loose and we witness maybe the first panzerfaust ever in action. For sure not to be taken seriously, this one is a fun and entertaining piece for the right kind of audience: nothing more and nothing less. In my youth I loved such kind of movies a lot. Good.

Kill them all and come back alone Is what happens when you take a lot of people with Circus experience and tell them to do a westerns.

It's a movie with an interesting setup the characters feel like something from a more goofy Western movie but the setup makes it a bit more gruesome, but it just never really pay it off in my opinion.

It's just not one of those western willing to go dark enough with what the premise.

Every character is flat, there's not really much to them. The Characters are very flat. They don't really have interesting dialogue. What they look like is what they are. And the Main guy has no charisma in my opinion. He has a face and smile. That is that

The fights on one hand, I kind of impressive because of the acrobatics involved, but on the others the punches are so fake that it is laughable.

The music is also very generic Western. The English dub doesn't standout, but at least is no audio pops.

The movie is not bad. It was not irritating to watch, but there's just so much that didn't catch me at all. It's just a forgetable the Western.

I always reckoned Chuck Connors just came along ten years too late to be a "Tarzan". He has precious little acting ability but would have been great rolling around in a loin cloth, or swinging through the trees with a knife between his teeth. Well, to be fair to that image - it's sort of what he ends up doing here in this very routine spaghetti western. He is "Clyde" who is charged with pinching an huge gold consignment being held by the Yankee army during the American civil war. Allied with half a dozen pretty disparate cutthroats and an even more duplicitous union captain "Lynch" (Frank Wolff) we now follow their escapades as betrayal begets betrayal and killings become routine as they search for the loot. It's all very cheap, cheerful and predictable - and Connors must have a jaw made of wrought iron. Francesco De Masi is no Ennio Morricone so we haven't even a quirky or original score to rely on to help this as it limps along to a denouement that matters not. The production - especially the editing - is really basic, but it might have worked better had the cast, dialogue and story been a bit more robust. As it is, though, well it just passes the time, that's all.

Hey - this is an Italian World War 2 movie plot! A bunch of guys, having fulfilled a training exercise, are then sent behind enemy lines to steal a bunch of gold, with at least one traitor in their midst? That sounds like Five For Hell, or one of those other films they show all the time on the telly! This is a Western however -someone's cheating! Enzo's no fool, however. He knows his film is about as in tune with reality as a plastic kangaroo doing Hamlet, so he does what he does best: fills the film with wall-to-wall action and forgets about supper! And it works! Chuck Connors is the cheeseball leader of our crew who has to infiltrate Yankee territory and steal gold that is mixed with dynamite. Frank Wolff is the snidey Confederate Captain who wants the gold for himself (and also seems to be a Yankee Captain as well?). Plus, Connors has about half a dozen men who seems loyal but most of which try to rip him off too.

When not trying to kill or rip off each other these guys are taking on the USA army, and winning! One of them is a strong man, another has a freakin rocket launcher! Will any of them remain loyal or will the drink cause us to pass out before we find out the truth? Filled with Enzo's hyperactive camera work, ridiculous POV work, and constant explosions, this is another worthy Enzo film for your collection! I'm drunk!

This is a Testosterone driven movie, if I ever saw one. Normally in westerns, the hero would have a love interest or at least a few saloon dancers will appear to provide a bit of eye candy. "Ammazzali tutti e torna solo", though, has absolutely no female person in the cast. It is just a bunch of rogues fighting for a few boxes of gold, and that's all there is of a story. Constant action and violence keeps you on the edge of your seat, it's a tremendous roller-coaster ride. Tall Chuck Connors walks through this happy massacre with a broad smile to show white teeth, while Frank Wolff plays his most dangerous opponent and a bunch of familiar genre actors like Ken Wood, Leo Anchoriz and Alberto dell'Acqua take care of guns, dynamite, knives and anything else that makes holes in people. Kind of fun, but on the other hand not all movies need to be like this for my taste.