UnowPriceless hyped garbage

BelSports This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

Maleeha Vincent It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

Lela The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

Coventry This film stood on my must-see list for one reason, namely the three major names in the cast and particularly because I'm an enormous fan of Telly Savalas' naturally malignant charisma. I should have guessed, however, that Savalas' part here is not much more than an small supportive role during the last half hour and that everything else isn't worth sitting through, neither. "A Reason to Live, A Reason to Die" is a poor, dull and forgettable hybrid between Spaghetti Western and (Civil) War movie that steals ideas and stylistic aspects from numerous classics but doesn't contribute the slightest thing itself. Director Tonino Valerii carefully watched all the blockbuster hits that got released during previous years (like "The Dirty Dozen", "The Wild Bunch", "The Great Escape", "The Magnificent Seven"…) and mishmashes a familiar story of a group convicted criminals that are offered the choice between the noose or fighting along in a battle to re-conquer a lost fortress. Colonel Pembroke gave up the fortress all too easily and, in order to avoid total loss of dignity, he embarks on a crazy mission to reclaim it with an 8-headed posse of outcasts that he promised a gold treasure that isn't there. James Coburn, who looks like he's been sleeping under a bridge for two years, depicts the anti- hero Colonel, Bud Spencer – in a largely non-comical role – is one of his henchmen and the great Telly Savalas is the evil Confederate Major they have to chase out of the fortress. "A Reason to Live, A Reason to Die" is incredibly long and tedious, especially because it's mainly derivative plodding during the first hour and a half. The trek towards the fortress is full of clichéd obstacles and macho arguments, while the final battle is dire and unspectacular. Being an Italian western from the early seventies, there's an unforgivable shortness of violent action, filthy bastard characters and general nastiness.

johnnyboyz A Reason to Live, a Reason to Die is a daft; knowing; old fashioned yarn – a film with clichéd action figures filling in for characters and crazy shoot outs involving masses of extras acting as its high points of drama. It is a film that begins with the aftermath of a huge gun fight at an American Civil War fort; a gun fight in which an awful lot happens AT the fort, but a gun fight to which the trudging prelude across the deserts of the great American West TO the fort consists of very little. One would compare it to Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch of just a few years previously, but the getting to the fort shoot out finale in that film was around about just as much fun as the maddening final shoot out was, maybe even more: but not here. Tonino Valerii's film is all about the pomp and the circumstance, a trek across the barren sands of nineteenth century U.S.A. that is only ever mildly invigorating at the best of times; the bulk of it acting as a prelude to the all of the chaos which, by the time of its arrival, has just about seen us stop caring altogether.In beginning with the fallout of the all out warfare, the film reveals to us its hand in regards to precisely where it's headed; a tactic we do not necessarily mind, and have indeed come to quite enjoy under varying guises from throughout cinema's long history. Some of the better instances, and the range of examples can be rather vast, arrive in the form of De Palma's Carlito's Way or Billy Wilder's classical era noir Double Indemnity; as two films with the eerie ability to snare us into proceedings and still have us as involved as much as we are by the time the conclusion arrives in exactly the manner we saw or heard during the opening beats. Valerii's film follows that of James Coburn's disgraced colonel Pembroke, and his propulsion from such a state into the messy world of suicide missions and open warfare in which he is the leader of an array of troops one would be a fool to not label the underdogs as to where they're eventually to head.When we first come across Pembroke, it is when the man is scraggly and worn in spite of his rank. He is a thief; a man on his way to jail, that is until he is identified by another official of a more gracious ilk and called into his quarters for a talk. An appreciator of fine wine and enjoying the high life that comes with having gone through the system, a life including armed guards; respect, it seems, and the ability to be so eloquent in one's multi-tasking when speaking of the wine and the mission in equal balance, Pembroke's saviour and his sitting opposite the bedraggled Pembroke displays, in sharp contrast, the deep difference between what a colonel should be and what Pembroke is. Pembroke has proposed to him a mission, a mission to try and recapture a fort for this, the side of the Union Army, from that of the Confederates whom took it under the command of Telly Savalas' Major Ward – a recapturing, it is deemed, that is best preordained by that of an underground tunnel which needs to be taken first. As the gallows outside are readied, and Pembroke contemplates his situation, he begrudgingly accepts and proceeds to round up a disparate array of Apaches; Mexicans; fanatics and rapists from the death roll for this dangerous mission.Pembroke, indeed the majority of the clan, are effectively on a quest for redemption; a quest surmised by the fact the nickname for the large fort they're due to take is that of the "Pulpit", in regards to its situation on that of a mountain, but a highly religious nickname neatly encapsulating the redemptive element of their mission as they attempt to do good for a change, and get the commanding officer back at the base whom sent them away the promotion he feels he deserves. People will be quick to point out the ties to The Dirty Dozen, but Valerii's piece owes so much more to Leone's game-changing Spaghetti Western The Good, The Bad and the Ugly; an apparently knowing point of inspiration inherent with the fact Pembroke initially brushes off enquiries to the rest of his crew with the promise of enemy gold buried out there in the region of where they're headed.Alas, the rest of the film is not up to the standard of Coburn's grizzled, underplayed performance of which he instills within his character and unloads into the film; the man playing the material in a fashion that is better than what the film deserves and is a performance which belongs in a better film. There are skirmishes with those they come up against; disagreements within the band of proverbial brothers as one or two of them express their desires to flee, the bedding down for a night's sleep ought to being a good source of tension as Pembroke's no-nonsense attitude clashes with cut-throats wanting to flee, but it mostly falls flat. One occasion witnesses the stumbling across of a secluded farm, a set piece that, again, ought to rack up a fair degree of tension what with the group of bandits and rapists Pembroke has in tow being forced into sharing the same space as decent civilian folk, but it fails to induce much in the way of effective drama and instead leaves rather-a nasty taste which feels misplaced in an otherwise guilty, old fashioned romp which is a deeply underwhelming experience on the whole.

wes-connors This English re-titled "A Reason to Live, A Reason to Die" is a thoroughly unconvincing United States Civil War swipe of "The Dirty Dozen", done in the Clint Eastwood "spaghetti western" style. James Coburn (as Pembroke) leads a less than star-studded group of seven desperadoes. (Still pre-Kojak) Telly Savalas, who appeared as one of the original "Dozen", is Mr. Coburn's major foil. Mr. Savalas (as Ward) has interesting taste in sculpture art. The locations are nice, but don't seem very American. The film's relatively high level of explosions, shootings, and stabbings must have been the box office draw, back in the early 1970s. Today, you only need to play a video game.** Una ragione per vivere e una per morire (1972) Tonino Valerii ~ James Coburn, Telly Savalas, Bud Spencer

classicsoncall You know, I must have missed something here because this story just didn't make much sense. During the Civil War, Union Colonel Pembroke (James Coburn) surrenders his position at Fort Holman to Rebel forces, and once court martialed, makes an offer to Major Charles Ballard to take the fort back with a handful of men. When asked why he surrendered in the first place, he stated that it wasn't important, so we never do find out. Huh?With five outlaws saved from the gallows, and a soldier thrown in for good measure by the Major, Pembroke makes his way back to Fort Holman, dangling a five hundred thousand dollar promise of hidden gold to his rag tag band. Curiously, it seemed to me that once the bullets started to fly, Pembroke lost more men than he started out with, but then again, I wasn't counting. In what looked like the complete reverse of the situation at the end of "Butch Cassidy and The Sundance Kid", it appeared that Pembroke's bunch had the entire Rebel garrison at Holman surrounded, managing to destroy everything in sight while picking off a swarm of soldiers who never seemed to be seeking cover from all the gunfire. Holman's commander, General Ward (Telly Savalas) must have figured that being this close to the end of the flick, he might as well take Pembroke's sword to end it all. The set up seemed to suggest that Ward and Pembroke were mortal enemies, but if they were, I'm not going back to find out why.The print of the film I viewed probably didn't help matters any, it was a cheap DVD I picked up for a buck, and was quite dark and muddy throughout. I will give credit though to Pembroke's military ally Eli Sampson (Bud Spencer), he got an awful lot of mileage out of the old, hey the War is over gimmick. As for the half million in hidden gold - nope, it never turned up.