Platicsco Good story, Not enough for a whole film

Noutions Good movie, but best of all time? Hardly . . .

Kien Navarro Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

Fatma Suarez The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

TankGuy Bounty killer Luke Chilson makes it his business to bring in escaped bandit Jose Gomez. Gomez flees to a small settlement on the Mexican border pursued by Chilson, who is treated with contempt by the townsfolk because of how he earns his living. However, the welcome Gomez with open arms and see him as the "victim". The townspeople help Gomez overpower Chilson and the bounty killer is held prisoner in the town. Gomez' gang soon joins him and the townsfolk become increasingly disturbed by the outlaw's violent behaviour. This prompts Gomez' former girlfriend to free Chilson which sets the stage for the inevitable showdown...The Bounty Killer was released in mid 1966 when most spaghetti western directors were still practising their craft and only the likes of Leone or Corbucci could produce a truly amazing film. This movie is rather poor and makes for nothing more than a time passer, it's contents easily forgotten once the credits begin to roll. It does have its moments but failed to hold my attention, looking good on the outside but coming across as extremely tepid. Despite the interesting plot nothing much happens over the film's duration and the narrative is set around a dusty little settlement in the middle of the desert. Apart from the two leads all of the characters are one dimensional and uninteresting. Richard Wyler was pretty good as Chilson as was Tomas Milian as Gomez. Milian(in his first spaghetti western)chews the scenery but is really the film's saving grace. The soundtrack began to get tedious around the film's halfway mark and is one very dour composition, a far cry from a chilling Morricone score. Action is sparse but I will admit that the final showdown was pretty enjoyable. The OTT deaths intercut with the stern close-ups of Chilson's face did make me laugh a little. Jose Gomez gets a humorously melodramatic death which gives literal meaning to the term "...and another one bites the dust".Overall an okay spaghetti western which is still worthy of viewing. 6/10.

FightingWesterner Using a pistol slipped to him by his sweetheart, bandit Tomas Milian escapes an armed transport before encountering hard-as-nails bounty hunter Richard Wyler in what's left of his nearly deserted hometown, where the people are squarely on his side.Although there's nothing much new here, there is a hard edge and a dead-serious nature to the proceedings that help make it enjoyable, along with Milian, who gives one of his typically offbeat performances, playing it cool and crazy! I wish I had a nickel for every time he basically played the same guy. Unfortunately though, Wyler is no match in the acting department and appears a little stiff.In an interesting reversal of what you normally see in western films, the town of basically law abiding people (including spaghetti western star Mario Brega) welcomes the villain and actively aids him against the hero!

ironhorse_iv It's doesn't stand out as much as the other Spaghetti Westerns movies, I have watch. Its story doesn't seem that interesting at first glance, but it is, once you get into it. It's just would be better told in a more enhanced writer's hands. Remind me of 1957's 3:10 to Yuma or Anthony Mann's 1953's The Naked Spur with its story. Though based on the western pulp novel by American Marvin Albert call 'Bounty Hunter', this movie follows the same basic patterns as other Italian flicks with the whole resurrection & insurrection plot line. That's if you can find this rare movie. It's badly damaged or cut by the years. Some versions are missing dialogue or violence key scenes. Some of the voice dubbing sound is missing, so that at these points the English audio with subtitles was used. There is also muffling and few background hiss. There are hints of very minor cropping at the sides of the print but seems to be original aspect ratio. It depends on what version, you end up getting. It doesn't help that 'The Ugly Ones' has many internationally re-released titles such as The Bounty Killer, The Days of the Guns, The Price of a Man, No Money equal no coffin, and etc. etc. It might get confusing, but all of those titles are the same movie. Directed by Eugenio Martín, the film marked the debut of Tomás Milián in the western genre playing the bad guy Jose Gomez, an outlaw treated and protected by his hometown from the law because they believe he is a local hero. Only one man, can be brave enough to risk the odds, and capture him; Bounty hunter, Luke Chilson (Richard Wyler). The pacing in the film is really slow, and stretch to near yawning point. The opening sequences of Luke Chilson catching another escapee, and Jose Gomez escaping could be cut out, and it wouldn't make any different in the end. The second half of the movie, more than makes up for it. The action scenes are pretty good. I do like the diner escape scene. The violence is not over the top, it's has some realistic looking dangerous stunt work. There's a scene where a guy gets shot off of his horse, and after he falls, that horse rolls right over him. That couldn't have felt very good. Also scenes of blood, bruising, and one shot kills that isn't fake looking. The acting is great. I'm overall impression of Milian committed to portrayal a man on a path of self-destruction. The film is loaded with interesting complex analysis of Jose's criminality ranging from his parent's violence death and land stolen by American raiders to racism by law enforcement. In the movie, violence and corruption traps Gomez, who led by his own good intentions, in the end become more corrupted and violent as those that brutalized him. By making Gomez more likable and romantic in nature. The audience is almost likely get sucker punched into rooting for him, until the evil fabric of his character becomes apparent. The film really hits the heights as the locals see the transformation of Gomez's dark side peeking out, more and more. Milian plays this villain role great, but in some scenes it seem like he is just murmuring nonsense. Wyler's bounty hunter is far more restrained subdued stoic good guy, yet apt for the character he portrays. Thank goodness, Chilson does not succumb to becoming a romantic lead in this. He is a well-drawn character rather than a stock heroic figure that you expect in a western. Surprising even the female role play by Halina Zelewska as Eden is never degrades her into a sex object due to her character's complex duality between Gomez and Chilson that causes her character conflict. Her decision play the biggest part of the ending in the film. It has weight with the black hat/white hat scenario. Some people see it as a right wing message that says the poor should look deeper into what they call these Robin Hood type heroes. I have to somewhat agree. Altogether, this creates an interesting story that is very sophisticated for what is, basically, a B-List movie. The camera work is pretty good, and captured both the wide open spaces and the claustrophobic confines of the buildings where much of the action in takes place. Once again, watch the diner scene again. There is a very abnormal implementation of zoom shots in the camera work during some particular scenes as the film approaches its climax use as a dreamlike intoxicated, surreal fragmentation of Gomez's mind. Rather than the usual sustained, intensity-building close-ups that Sergio Leone was so fond of, the filmmaker here uses a rapidly zooming in and out camera for a more unsettling effect. It's somewhat annoying and headache to watch. The soundtrack is exceptional with a score by Stelvio Cipriani that exemplifies the unique qualities of the Euro western score. Overall: it's worth the watch if a Spaghetti Western's fan, but a bit forgettable compare to the other flashy Spaghetti Westerns, I'm used to.

J_J_Gittes My first film by Eugenio Martin, and I am deeply moved. Nagisa Oshima once wrote that all filmmakers want to film sex and death the most. I always understood the first part, never the second. I think, now I do. The moment when Tomas Milian's character lies on the ground, dying, his face covered with dirt, and we see only half of it, as the camera shows us an extreme close-up, with a lonely tear rolling down his cheeks as he exhales his last breaths that stir the dust of the soil to lift itself up from the ground a few more times.The relentlessness of the view. The relentlessness of the camera watching. That's been something which I've been pondering a lot ever since I started falling in love with cinema. Looking, not wanting to let go, and at last having to, at some point in time – because everything has to end. That is death. Everything is death. We die a thousand times each day.Those looks, those insisting eyes Martin keeps us showing and showing, paired with the melancholy tunes of master composer Stelvio Cipriani are the heart and soul of the whole movie. Which is a melodrama at its core, a subdued, forlorn melodrama. A film of the past, looking upon it. Once upon a time in the West.The editing is also top-notch always putting people side by side, giving everyone at least a little attention and thus creating an ensemble piece of people, connected like beads on a string. Everyone is important in this film. Because everyone is human.The dying – in the end we all have to die. I would like to think that at the end of the movie, the protagonist, a Bounty Killer, doesn't collect the bounty for Milian's character but lets the townspeople bury one of their own, one who used to belong. He is still a part of them.Anyways, the film is a statement, a demonstration, an elegy, wonderfully executed up until the end-titles which must have been some of the first in film history created in this now dominant way. 1966: After the credits have rolled, the image turns black and we remain to hear a wailing trumpet and finally the last strings of a soothing guitar. Maybe it's not what you see before you die, but what you hear. The last sounds of this world.