The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly Review

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly is a classic spaghetti Western, most well known for Ennio Morricone’s iconic score. Even though I had tried watching this before, I fell asleep early on, but I was determined to finish it. However, as excited as I was, when I sat down to watch it, I understood why I fell asleep. The movie is slow, and by that, I mean they could have trimmed at least an hour off of the run time. Through this painful slowness, they do build tension well. All of this stillness allows the relationships between the characters to grow, which is important in this story. They did a great job of making each character feel distinct to one another, however, there are really only three characters that actually do anything. These characters, while great, are all very stereotypical characters in Westerns, especially Clint Eastwood. The beginning of the film introduces him in a stereotypical way, but then a twist makes us think they’re doing something different, only for him to become stereotypical again. I am torn with this movie, there are quite a few scenes that are brilliantly shot and performed, however, there are just as many unnecessary scenes. My comment about the movie being slow isn’t all bad though, this can be used well. A great example of this is the very beginning, there is no dialogue until roughly the ten minute mark, even after that, there is very little dialogue. Which is good for two reasons. First, it makes all of the tension build in a wonderful way, having something this slow, focusing on the relationships between characters, makes it so the end result is even more satisfying. Second, it makes it so the awful ADR isn’t as noticeable, however, I’ll give it a pass as it was filmed in Italian. But, wow, the acting is really stiff and it does not sync up to the original actor’s mouths. This lack of dialogue is no easy feet, often, this can result in us not knowing the characters as well. But, with a three hour run time, I think I knew the characters pretty well by the end, which was rewarding in the final shootout. Especially after all of the slow boring scenes filling most of the second act, having everything culminating into one moment is extremely exciting. So, overall, I think that if it weren’t for Ennio Morricone’s brilliant score, nobody would have heard of the movie. Even though the movie is slow and boring for the most part, all of that makes the movie worth watching. 6.8/10