Vengeance

Seek this one out if you are looking for a different kind of Lee Van Cleef "spaghetti-type western". Definitely on a par with his lesser westerns like "Death Rides a Horse", but inferior to "The Big Gundown", this revenge story has quite a few unusual aspects. The surviving massacred family member is a young boy, who proves quite resourceful in his vendetta against Van Cleef and his gang. Lee is definitely not a sympathetic character, and his evil presence is perhaps only surpassed by "Angel Eyes" in "The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly". The quality of the DVD is inferior, with the sound badly out of sync. Nevertheless, I enjoyed this unique "pseudo-spaghetti western". - MERK

Released in 1977 and directed by Joseph Manduke, "Kid Vengeance" (retitled simply "Vengeance") is a Matzo Ball oater starring Leif Garrett as an adolescent who witnesses his mother's raping followed by his parent's murder at the hands of a bandit gang in the Southwest desert. He teams up with a miner (Jim Brown) to enact vengeance and get his sister back (Glynnis O'Connor). Lee Van Cleef plays the outlaw leader.

This was shot before another Hebraic Western with Van Cleef and Garrett, 1976's "God's Gun," but released afterward. These turned out to be the last two Westerns for Van Cleef. "Kid Vengeance" is better than "God's Gun" simply because it's gritty realistic whereas the latter has an uneven semi-camp/parody tone. In any case, Garrett was about 14 during filming and O'Connor was 20-21 whereas Van Cleef looks like he wandered off the set of "Woodstock" with his headband, although they were no doubt used in the Old West. The plot may be hackneyed, but the cast is great. Unfortunately, the movie's strictly one-dimensional in tone and utterly desolate in location; and therefore a mite tedious. Still, it's worth checking out if you like the cast and 60s-70's Westerns.

The film runs 90 minutes and was shot in Israel.

GRADE: C+

After witnessing the savage massacre of his family , a boy (Leif Garret) sets out a personal vendetta and rescue his sister (Glynnis O'Connor) against an outlaw band ( Lee Van Cleef, John Marley , among others ) . He carries the revenge in his heart after seeing his family butchered . Former rules of the code of west are dated and nowadays is guided for revenge . He embarks on his vengeance and during his quest teams up with a prospector (Jim Brown ) who has been robbed by the nasties . Together form an alliance going after those who murdered his parents and trying to retrieve the money the bandits robbed him . They are a dynamic duo combining untamed youth and toughness . They travel the southwestern territories and cross paths concerning similar foes they hunt .

This average Western/revenge flick is plenty of violence , shootouts and packs loads of action though the director is uninspired and the final is pretty predictable . This mediocre Western vengeance tale is set with Francesco De Massi's good musical score . Features an appearance by stalwart Spaghetti Western Lee Van Cleef as an ugly , brutal, dirty and downright villain with big earring.

James Brown as two fisted hero is fine , he starred four Westerns in similar style , three of them along with Van Cleef ( exception is ¨100 rifles¨ ) , they are : ¨Take a hard ride¨ ( directed by Antonio Margheritti ), ¨The Condor¨ ( by John Guillermin ) and ¨Kid Vengeance¨ . Leif Garret as obstinate and impetuous young is nice , he starred two Westerns both of them with Van Cleef , thus was with ¨ A bullet from God ¨ ( by Frank Kramer or Gianfranco Parolini ) and this one .The motion picture is regularly directed by Joseph Manduke .

Another matzoh ball-topped spag western featuring Lee Van Cleef and a very young Leif Garrett (before he became a teenage heart throb), who also "teamed" up in God's Gun which I have given a low rating, but this one rates even lower for worse acting, action and production. Tom Thurston (Leif Garrett) witnesses the brutal murder of his parents and the abduction of his elder sister by a mostly Mexican band of outlaws led by white man McClain (Van Cleef) who is the most un-western looking villain in a Western movie; with his greasy long hair, ornate headband and single earring, he looks like he wandered out of Woodstock Festival into a movie set by mistake and decided to stay there. On the spur of the moment, Tom is hellbent on revenge, pursuing the gang surreptitiously and surprisingly manages to whittle down their numbers in various ways, without being caught. And that's just the beginning of a long list of errors I can spot, in continuity and logic and others. And that's not even mentioning the passel of no-account lowlifes that try to rob the gold prospector Isaac (Jim Brown) of his hard-gained treasure, who are in my opinion the most moronic and incompetent bad guys I've ever come across in film. The climax and ending are simply unbelievable they're almost surreal. Watch the film and you'll know what I'm talking about.

KID VENGEANCE (2 outta 5 stars) Cheaply-made and poorly-directed piece of western fluff starring Lee Van Cleef as one of the most vile villains he's ever played. This was during his later years when he was getting a bit long in the tooth to believably play those nasty, tough guy parts... but he is still the most interesting thing in this movie. He leads a bunch of bandits who rape and kill the mom and dad of young Leif Garrett and then kidnap his sister. Leif goes after them with "vengeance" on his mind. He begins to pick off the bandits one by one, using some pretty unconventional means (bow and arrow, rocks, scorpions, the old snake-in-the-saddlebag trick). He eventually teams up with a gold prospector (Jim Brown) whose life savings have been stolen by these men as well. The film starts off looking like a bad TV-movie... but once the raping and killing starts it becomes obvious that this was no "Movie Of The Week". You might be interested enough to sit through it once but this is no classic by any means.