I was hesitant when I got this movie from Netflix. Flashes of Sergio's other Once Upon a Time movie (America) danced through my head, and I did not like the rug cutting that was involved. But I decided to give West a chance. Thank goodness I did.

Westerns can deal with a slow pace well. It helps to build tension where in other movies it can be just a waste of time. It definitely worked in West. The pace was slow but the tension was high, and as a result the movie actually went by pretty quickly, even at 2 hours and 45 minutes in length. From the opening scene this movie hooked me, as 3 hired guns show up at a train station. They are waiting for something but you don't know what. That something arrives with Charles Bronson's character, who greets these hired gunman by playing a rather creepy tune on a harmonica he carries with him at all times. The mood is struck. A rather uneasy mood.

Bronson plays a character with no name. A really cool character, really. Sergio has a knack for cool characters with no names, I guess. He arrives on the scene with a bang, and his motives remain rather a mystery until the final 20 minutes of the movie during one of the best scenes in cinema history. The music, the reveal, the payoff. All stunned me.

Oh but he isn't the only character worth mentioning. Henry Fonda does a great job with his character Frank, a ruthless gun hired by a railroader to clear any obstacles in the path of the railroad. Which he does with no discretion.

Then there is Cheyenne, played by Jason Robards. Cheyenne is a leader of a gang of men who we are first introduced to when he breaks free from his captives, which happens off screen in a rather excellent tense scene. But his character aint all bad. He's got principles! Like, no killing kids and catholic priests. Robards' character definitely provides a lot of the comic relief.

Oh, and Claudia Cardinale, playing Jill McBane isn't so bad either. In fact, she's downright gorgeous.


I have always liked westerns, but in the back of my mind I always thought they could be something more. Even though I love The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly (in my top 30 all time), it still boiled down to an incredibly cool movie about the quest for buried gold. Once Upon a Time in the West has everything, Good Bad and Ugly had.

Cool characters: Check
Tense scenes: Check
Brilliant score: Check

But the one thing West had that Good Bad and Ugly didn't was an involving storyline. I could care less about the gold buried in that grave, it was how they got there that interested me. But in West, I cared about what end I was being taken to. And what an end it was.

This was one of those experiences where I'm watching a movie and while I'm watching it I am almost literally stunned. I get awe stricken and say to myself "Holy shit this movie is amazing." I try to calm myself down cause I don't want to get vested in the movie just to have the ending disappoint, but nothing did, and after it was over I couldn't believe I had just watched one of the best movies I have ever seen.

But I did.


Just incase you're not all too bright and can't tell what my grade is after that review:

**** (A+)

Let me reiterate. One of the best movies I have ever seen.

Hmmmm yes what Squee said, this film is rather awesome.

No need to add more he said it all.

the movie was much slower but way more "Epic" then the good,the bad and the ugly.

The film felt like an actual snapshot of a time long ago in the west. The added addition of a main woman character really separated this from the Clint Eastwood westerns. Bronson and Fonda were just great and the other guy was cool. The characters were very full of life showing a lot of emotions and you get really great tense acting.

However the film lacks that knockout scene that makes it iconic. The theme music is great all, but nothing like The good, the bad and the ugly.

The film is great A- film but to me the best western ever filme is still The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. The chemistry between the three actors in that film was perfect and the theme and the famous iconic scene which this film lacked.

It is still a EPIC western...


I heard the role Charles Bronson was going to be Eastwood role. Bronson did great but Eastwood would have been great as well. To me Eastwood was more cooler in these roles.


I also noticed a film mistake. The guy who was shot in the train appears again in the poker scene...

I deem 'Once Upon a Time in the West' pointless, an operatic journey which ends in itself.

Awesome western. I'd disagree with Squee's point about the story though... my biggest complaint with the film is that I wasn't that enamoured with the plot. Seemed pretty typical of the genre. But the film is SO amazingly directed and the score is SO good, and overall it's just so much fun to watch with the 3 hours flying by, that the story running secondary isn't an issue.

Cardinal's character is a pretty interesting reversal of cinematic stereotypes... despite her looks (Seriously, one of the top 5 most attractive female characters ever) and the initial princess-like introduction, she's really just a hooker looking out for her own benefit at any cost.

Brosnan is really, really bad-ass, and Fonda is his usually great self. I like the little talk they have before the shootout... really gets down to the core of their identities as gunmen. Brosnan taking off at the end is also a pretty refreshing, non-typical way to close it, but the right way.

I think I still like The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly a little more, but Once Upon A Time in the West gets a place as one of the best westerns I've seen regardless.

4.5/5

Yeah, it was definitely his badassery here that got him the Bond gig.

And to think...he wasn't even fifteen when he made this!

Amazing movie, squee said all that needed to be said.

This is one of those "watch once and find it decent and latter on and realize how great the film is"


I watched it once and I found it a bit boring and not as cool as TGTBTU and gave it around a B+/A-.


Watched it again it was truly a western epic unlike any other apart from the Searchers.

TGTBTU is not really an epic imo, as it has a simple action based story however hands down the better western.

This is a long epic tale of 3-4 characters and a story set in the Wild West.

A

I was kinda disappointed. Yeah, it's big and epic and stylish and brilliantly shot and all of those other things Leone is known for, but I didn't find it that engaging or entertaining. The story is needlessly complicated, and the scope isn't nearly wide enough (surprising, with the bigger budget Leone had to work with). They also didn't do enough with Fonda-the-villain, and there's no central character to anchor the film down, like Clint did in the Dollars Trilogy.

Still, the music is impossibly amazing, and the opening scene is indeed brilliant. Indeed, it's got flashes of that brilliance throughout, but they're few and far between. The film never feels like a cohesive whole. It's even, dare I say, boring at times.

Maybe I'll love it some day, but not right now.

Boo! Boo!

But he is mostly right, Price.

The first third was artsy, and original, and brilliant, and...did I say artsy? However it was also dull. As much as I loved the score during this segment (and all throughout) and the shockingly adept form of revealing everything without saying anything, and the very intricate slow unravel, I couldn't help having to blink a lot. As a trade off, the last two thirds are intriguing and interesting and epic and powerful, but lose almost all of the original storytelling and brilliant artistry displayed at the beginning. It's still very well down, but just not that exceptional. Had they found a way to combine these elements into one, this really would've been the greatest western ever made. As is, it is a great flick, but nothing beyond that.
8.5/10 (not nearly as good as Unforgiven, GBU, and I'm sure plenty of other great westerns, but still very much worth watching.)

I am sure even Clint Eastwood would disagree.

Its like Seven Samurai.

Its slow and it takes forever to build up but it is well made and it finishes with a huge bang and are films you would never ever forget.

A