This movie shows potential for both Eastwood and Leone, but is far from the height that either will reach in their carreer. The acting is pretty horrible other than Eastwood and Volonte (Ramon). Most of the supporting characters take you out of the movie as sson as they open their mouths. The score was ok, but incessantly annoying with the pan flute slide every two seconds throughout the entire movie.

From a technical standpoint, the movie was not enjoyable. It looked like a B movie in almost every respect. The editing is atrocious as the audio dialogue and video are matching for a couple words in each sentence. The directing highlighted every horrible performance instead of understanding what your cast is capable of, and working with it.

The movie may be the beginning of what some consider greatness, but it's riddled with amateur errors. I have nothing against old movies, this one was just done without much taste. To be fair, it's my first Leone movie, so maybe I just don't like spaghetti westerns.

1 / 2 directing & technical aspect
1 / 2 story
0 / 1 acting
0 / 1 pacing
1 / 1 dialogue
1 / 1 living up to its genre
0 / 1 originality
0 / 1 lasting ability to make you think
0.......misc enjoyment point (+/-)

4 out of 10

How often do you watch a movie where at some point you just say to yourself "holy s, this is a great movie". This happened to me recently while watching "A Fistful of Dollars". I know, I know.... like country music and rap, we all say we don't like westerns. Unlike those musical genres (my half-sincere apologies to fans) a western need not be void of quality and depth.

In case you aren't familiar with this movie, it is technically the first of a trilogy of westerns made by famed director Sergio Leone. We are are more familiar with the third movie in that trilogy - The Good, The Bad and The Ugly - but the first two movies in the set are almost as highly regarded. While "Ugly" is one of my all-time favorites I have to say that "Dollars" was not far behind.

The movie start in classic Leone style. There are almost no words spoken for the first several minutes of the movie. Leone seemingly drops us right into the middle of the plot and the movie starts with a bang. And then there is Clint. Like Nicholson's laugh or Pacino's... well, demeanor.... it seems that Clint's sneer has become almost cliche. But in this movie we are reminded of just how brilliant and descriptive his glare can be. And when he did speak, there was meaning - not a wasted word anywhere in the movie. Some of his comments were downright funny.

Even though the movie starts with a bang there is a palpable build of momentum throughout the movie. The plot was clever and even though you could see the final conflict coming from the beginning of the movie it was still very rewarding when it came. One unique note about this movie and the series in general: Clint's character (nameless in all three but they may very well be the same character) straddles the line between good and evil, often from scene to scene.

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A supremely entertaining western from 1964!

I will say the dubbing nature of 'A Fistful of Dollars' is a little distracting early on, but by the time the opening portion concluded I was incredibly interested in what was happening onscreen. The pacing is excellent, thanks to some very fine cinematography, great action sequences and a top notch score.

Clint Westwood debuts as a leading movie star and is terrific throughout, portraying the wonderfully named J̶o̶e̶ "the Man with No Name". It's little surprise these are the films that truly made him. Away from Eastwood, I really enjoyed the trio that played the Rojo brothers - Gian Maria Volonté (aka Johnny Wels), Sieghardt Rupp and Antonio Prieto. They're just as important as the main man and play the roles superbly.

Bring on the sequels!

Even better than I remember. The story was more interesting than I remembered. The Man With No Name is more fun in this movie than I remembered. The side characters are more interesting than I remembered. My only complaints are that some of the acting and parts of the script could be better. This is really epic movie that I would not mind watching again!

Leone almost single handedly destroyed the Western.
But it wasn't "single handed" because he had help from the critics who were even bigger hacks than Leone was.
Here, we have a movie based on Yojimbo, which is called a classic by some, though I doubt it is truly a classic. "Seven Samurai" is a classic, but not "Yojimbo".
Still, "Yojimbo" is better than this, because too much is lost in translation here.
It's a thoroughly unmotivated movie about totally unmotivated characters.
The only interesting bit in here is a quip about the equine that No Name (Eastwood) rides.
Well, that's because the equine is the ONLY interesting and credible character in the entire movie.
Somehow, No Name thinks he can massacre what appears to be at least fifty gunmen without a scratch, yet he says at the end he doesn't take risks.
It's just a bunch of killing and shooting and noise with no motivation. For "bang per buck", it's one of the poorest payoffs ever. Only "The Wild Bunch" scores a worse "bang per buck" than this with its dullness for all the gun play.
When the dollar trilogy came out, only the crack heads and total dope heads thought it was cool, so the critics placated them. Now, those people are in authority, God help us, and have fooled following generations into the idea that this garbage is "classic". Talk about the emperor's new clothes, we see it illustrated here.