Director: Sergio Corbucci
Cast: Franco Nero, Tony Musante, Jack Palance

While some people like to harp about their feeling that mankind is generally good in nature, I admit that I am much more cynical when I look upon the species as a whole. Let's face it - nobody is perfect, and eventually you will see that even your loved ones have some severe flaws. Some of these flaws are universal. One such universal flaw is that everybody (and that includes you, dear reader) has either in the back of their mind, or right up front in their mind, a list of people that they dislike greatly or have gross stereotypes about. Sometimes this dislike or stereotyping can be justified; I've personally come across some people in my travels that have repulsed me to a degree or been so predictable in their behavior that I feel anyone else would feel the same way as I do. But other times, the dislike or stereotyping seems to be only partially justified, or simply not justified at all. There are particular people that look at certain groups of people and frequently portray these groups in a negative and/or stereotypical fashion. What I am really talking about are filmmakers, and I am not just limiting it to Hollywood filmmakers. If you've been around the cinematic block quite a few times as I've had, you'll have seen the same frequent treatments of certain groups. For example, lawyers. Lawyers in movies are frequently shown to be heartless and corrupt. Another example is with police officers. They too are often shown to be heartless and corrupt. And let's not forget about everybody's favorite whipping boy, politicians. They too are usually portrayed as being heartless and corrupt.

I guess that the three groups of people that I have described being demonized in movies made all over the world are often portrayed in this negative way is because of dramatic purposes. If all lawyers, police officers, and politicians in movies were always portrayed as being absolute angels, many filmmakers would find it much more difficult to make some sort of dramatic hook that would grab an audience's interest from start to end. So I can understand that to a degree. But there are some cases where certain groups are picked on by filmmakers to such a degree, it suggests plain ignorance at best, and cruel prejudice at worst. I'm talking about when a whole nation is often portrayed to be bad news. Some countries have managed to stay off the hook; for example, I don't know of any filmmakers who have trashed Luxembourg and its people. But it's certainly happened in other countries. For example, in my country of Canada, foreign filmmakers (especially those from Hollywood) have portrayed Canada being full of people speaking ridiculous accents I've personally never heard, local policemen still wearing red uniforms and riding horses everywhere, the country being full of ice and snow even in mid-summer. Whenever I encounter Canada being so inaccurately portrayed, I personally feel two ways about it. On one hand, it's nice for me to know there are definitely people in the world who are stupid and ignorant compared to how I am, so I know I have a greater chance of beating these people in certain common goals. On the other hand, I realize that these inaccurate portrayals may make my country look weak on the world stage, and therefore I may indirectly experience problems when Canada tries to assert itself.

Actually, I think Canada gets off a lot easier in world cinema than a lot of other countries do. One of those particular countries in my opinion is Mexico. It doesn't seem to matter what the time period is in various portrayals of Mexico - it almost always seems to be extremely negative, from ruthless drug dealers to poverty-stricken peasants who beg for a gringo gunfighter to save them from sombrero-wearing bandit leaders who always seem to be fat, with mustaches, and a bullet belt slung over their torsos. This is just not limited to Hollywood movies, but sometimes even in movies made by Mexicans (such as Boom In The Moon.) Certainly, a lot of this negativity is based on fact; Mexico has always been a poor country, and poverty breeds all sorts of problems. But boy, would it be nice to see some sunnier and positive portrayals of Mexico and Mexicans in movies. When I got my hands on the spaghetti western The Mercenary, I wasn't expecting Mexico and Mexicans to get off easy. But I had a hope the movie would compensate in other areas to make up for that. In the movie, which is set in the years of the Mexican revolution, Franco Nero (Keoma) plays a Polish mercenary by the name of Sergei Kowalski. Kowalski makes a deal with the Garcia family, who own a Mexican silver mine, to transport a shipment of silver safely across the border. But around this time, one of the mine's lowly workers, a man by the name of Paco Roman (Tony Musante, The Last Run) flees the mine, and is in quick order a fugitive from the Garcias, particularly the Garcia family member (Eduardo Fajardo, Companeros) who is a general in the Mexican army. But Paco manages to round up some supporters, and when Kowalski reaches the mine, Kowalski finds Paco and his men have taken over. Kowalski eventually agrees to help Paco and his men for a hefty price, but Kowalski soon finds out that not only will he have to deal with General Garcia and his men, a rival mercenary known as Curly (Jack Palance, One Man Jury) is determined to get his hands on that silver by any means necessary.

The Mercenary was produced by the legendary Alberto Grimaldi, who in his career brought his A game on a number of high-quality European movies, including spaghetti westerns like Sabata and The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly. Seeing his name in the opening credits had me confident that The Mercenary at the very least would be professionally made. It definitely was. For starters, the movie is very well photographed, and the Spanish backdrop representing Mexico looks spectacular and without any wear or tear from human interaction. The various buildings look authentic, appearing worn and dusty from what seems to be natural wear and tear. In the backgrounds of places where people congregate (military headquarters, villages), there are dozens, sometimes hundreds of extras milling about. Everything else, such as the costumes and props (including an antique car and an airplane) adds to the movie's oompth. There's definitely enough here to make this an epic-looking spaghetti western. But before you might start to think that this western is serious from all this expense spent on it, you might be surprised to know that this western often doesn't take itself completely seriously. Viewers familiar with spaghetti westerns, for example, will get the in-joke of the sight of Franco Nero's character using a machine gun on several occasions. A lot of the remaining humor isn't quite as clever, but it does all the same generate some chuckles, from Tony Musante's character using a naked lady to help him explain Mexican society to Nero, or when Nero's character gets so drunk with power he gets Musante and his men give all the water from their canteens so he can take a shower. Though I admit some of the humor is a little strange, mainly with Jack Palance's character, who is portrayed in a weird ambiguous manner that suggests he may be gay. Even stranger is that director Sergio Corbucci (The Great Silence) somehow managed to convince Palance in one scene to completely be stripped of his clothing.

You read that right: NAKED JACK PALANCE! Most viewers will probably think that was a misguided decision by Corbucci, and probably think in a few other areas there should have been improvements. At 106 minutes in length, the movie seems stretched out quite a bit, and while the movie is never dull, it seems at times to be repeating some particular character actions and situations. Despite this padding, there is also the problem that the narrative sometimes jumps ahead significantly, resulting in some confusion when some new scenes start. Also, there are a few times when something important happens right out of camera range, resulting in more bewilderment for a few moments. All the same, I feel that The Mercenary is pretty well directed for the most part. Corbucci did get some help here and there with the movie's general feel, such as a fantastic musical score by the legendary and prolific Ennio Morricone (The Five Man Army). But Corbucci deserves most of the credit, the main reason being that he often gives the movie very effective playful feeling. I'm not just talking about the blatant gags, but also that there is a feeling that everyone in front of and behind the camera is having a very good time, and the feeling is infectious. Sometimes this playful feeling doesn't always work, namely in the action sequences; seeing characters laugh and act joyfully as dozens of people are being slaughtered strikes a wrong note. But if you can look past the movie's sometimes attitude of revolutionary warfare being fun, the action sequences do have a lot of power to them. A lot of money was spent on ammunition and explosives, and Corbucci lets his players go all out fighting each other with those munitions, which adds extra zip and spectacle.

When the main cast members are not battling each other, there is a lot of dialogue between them, and that's where you'll quickly see another misstep. Much of the dubbed dialogue is spoken with thick accents that sometimes makes it difficult to understand what's being said. But the actors are colorfully expressive, so that compensates a little. What compensates even more is how these characters are written to be. Though many of the Mexican characters fall into the clichés I mentioned earlier that you usually find in spaghetti westerns, there are some unique and interesting traits to them. The character of Paco Roman clearly is a symbol of the rebels of the Mexican revolution, but doesn't seem to want to really change things despite his brother and father being killed earlier. ("[I want] to kill the bosses and take their money!", he says of his ultimate plans at one point. And when he starts to become more powerful, he starts backstabbing his former comrades and associates so his position can be secure. A woman named Columba (Giovanna Ralli, Cannon For Corboda) that midway through enters into Paco's life obviously represents ordinary Mexican citizens. She has some pointed dialogue to Paco such as, "A revolutionary is not ashamed of his actions, only a thief is". And while she expresses that regular Mexicans don't want any part in a revolution, she ultimately joins Paco because she has no other better options at the time. Kowalski and Curly, on the other hand, represent foreign interests in a country going through revolution. We see that they and other foreigners like them are generally only getting involved for their own personal gain, not really caring who might get hurt or killed - including others of their kind. And when they do help, they do the bare minimum for the maximum amount of profit. It's interesting to see all four of these symbolic characters through the course of the movie manipulate each other and get manipulated. There are no clear-cut good guys in this movie, so it's hard to root for anyone, but at the same time it's interesting to follow these colorful characters to see how they will end up. This and the other merit in The Mercenary previously discussed might not be enough to make the movie a genre classic in anybody's eyes, but there's definitely enough to safely label it an above average effort well worth seeing.

(Posted April 23, 2024)