Once Upon A Time In The West - All-Region UHD

Note: This review contains spoilers; please do not read if you do not wish to find out important plot points before viewing the film.This movie has so much---stunning scenery, a great cast, tight writing, economic plot, and haunting music---and it takes its time to unfold its tale of stark vengeance and redemption. This is unmistakably and indelibly a Sergio Leone vision. One could imagine that Clint Eastwood was first offered the role of Harmonica, the avenger, and then it went to Charles Bronson. However it worked out, Bronson was superb as the Everyman hero/possible avenging angel character; he projected a subtle sorrow in his piercing eyes, even his body language, that made him perfect for the role.The plot is multilayered, revolving around a lovely widow (Claudia Cardinale) of a shrewd man named Brett McBain, who is brutally murdered along with his children by the railroad's hired guns while she is enroute to join them at their home in Sweetwater. Her property is what is coveted and it becomes Harmonica's bait to settle an old score with the chief hired gun, Frank, who is shockingly revealed to be played by wholesome Henry Fonda. His clear blue eyes, so apparently innocent-looking, become frightening in their lack of human emotions. Frank kills without remorse whatever it befalls him to kill as casually as flicking a leaf off his sleeve. Human life is meaningless to him, even more so than to his tubercular cancer-ridden boss Morton. At least he has a motive (greed) to explain his hubris; Frank evidently needs no such excuse and kills because it's what he was born to do.Another character is brought into the tense mix, a bountied outlaw named Cheyenne, appealingly played by Jason Robards. He is also a killer, but one with a sense of humor and a kind streak, as well as a soft spot in his heart for pretty women. When both he and Harmonica are hired by Jill McBain to get revenge on her husband's killers, they form a strange alliance against Frank and the railroad, which Cheyenne sees as a threat to his way of outlaw life. Over time, he becomes friendly with the widow Jill, who in turn is oddly drawn to Harmonica. When Cheyenne realizes this, he utters his famous line: "There's something inside a man like that... something about death." Everything hinges on McBain's property, which is substantial, and his plans to build a railroad station. He had everything legally in place to build the station but if it isn't finished by the time the railroad reaches Sweetwater, his heir forfeits the right to build it and even to keep the land. Harmonica uncovers the motive for McBain's murder and will prevent his dream from failing.Frank, who is usually so icily carefree about death and those who stalk him, grows more obsessed with finding out who Harmonica is, since every time he asks him, the enigmatic drifter keeps answering by naming off men that Frank has killed. Everything comes apart for Morton and Frank as the killer begins to slowly but relentlessly unravel, with vague flashbacks rising as to who Harmonica might be. These, however, keep his past shrouded sufficiently so that Frank cannot quite close this maddening chapter in his life by just gunning down Harmonica and being done with him.At last, Frank is mortally wounded in the climatic gun duel by Harmonica, who strangely is less fazed by what should also be a mortal wound, leading to the speculation that Harmonica is someone other than who he appears to be. Placing his harmonica to Frank's dying lips where his weakening breath wheezes out a few ragged discordant notes, Harmonica watches as his motive is finally realized by Frank. He had sadistically stood a man upon his younger brother's shoulders with a noose around his victim's neck, then shoved a harmonica into the boy's lips. Easing back to watch for the moment when the younger man's legs would finally give out and his brother would hang, Frank is smiling with cold pleasure at his handiwork. It is at that point that the older brother cursed his killer and kicked the boy out from under him, thus alleviating the responsibility placed on Harmonica to keep him alive.But this sequence, though gratifying from a vengeance point, does not answer the question about Harmonica's mysterious knowledge about Frank's victims or his apparent ability to shake off a serious wound with little effect. That combined with Harmonica's penchant to be in the right place at the right time, to stand outside of events while at times controlling them, gives his character a dimension that disconnects him from temporal events. He becomes at those moments like a mysterious angel of death.Every actor was wonderful in his role, from Claudia Cardinale to Jason Robards, but the two principals were outstanding. Fonda, renowned for playing good guys, turned his reputation as an actor completely around with his flawless portrayal of the vicious and heartless killer, Frank. His foil, played to understated perfection by Charles Bronson, was the reluctant vigilante, the man consumed with revenge for his brother's murder, and yet not merely that. Bronson projected from Harmonica a deep and inexplicable sadness that permeated his words, appearance and actions.This was not Leone's choice for a movie. He had abandoned the spaghetti Western concept after the Clint Eastwood films, but was persuaded to take on this project. It did not fare well at the box office, which is no surprise considering its length of almost three hours. A great pity, as it is sometimes overlooked by fans of the spaghetti Western genre for both its lack of commercial success, and for committing the unforgivable sin of not having Eastwood in the lead. It is a great film and works on many levels; in some ways, it is the distillation and the perfection of the SW genre even as it closed it out for good.

It seems almost redundant to talk about how amazing a film Sergio Leone's masterpiece, "Once Upon a Time in the West" is. So much has already been said about it by the many filmmakers, scholars, and film lovers whom it affected deeply. The film transcends the negative `Spaghetti Western' label so hastily slapped on the many Euro-Westerns that appeared in the late 1960. Yes, many of these movies were trashy and low-quality, but there were also many great films, and "Once Upon a Time in the West" reigns supreme amongst them. In it, Leone, who had previously helmed the "Dollars" trilogy with Clint Eastwood, achieves a sublime level of mythic poetry, reaching into the realms of the Western as fantasy fairy-tale. He touches on the themes of almost all Westerns that came before it, references many classic American Westerns, and crafts it all into a tale of the men and women who built the open West and who then watched its demise under the new forces of civilization. Leone's film is almost choreographed, like a dance of death between the four fascinating main characters: Jill, prostitute-turned-homemaker (Claudia Cardinale); Frank, the ruthless killer hired by the railroads `to remove small objects from the track' (Henry Fonda, in the surprise role of his career); Cheyenne, the rough and comic outlaw (Jason Robards); and the mysterious, implacable gunman known to everyone only as `Harmonica,' (Charles Bronson) who's lonesome wail on the instrument is the eerie signature sound of the film. The lives of these four collide in the Arizona desert (filmed alternately in Spain and Monument Valley, Utah), against the backdrop of the arrival of the railroad, and slowly work out their destinies in the dying West.This DVD was a long time coming. MGM quickly released the three Leone-Eastwood films to DVD, but Paramount took its time getting around to the director's greatest work. However, the special edition was worth the wait. The two-disc set is loaded with fantastic extras. The transfer in widescreen is glorious (and to think for years we had to watch it cropped for TV!), the new 5.1 sound mix showcases Leone's brilliant use of sound effects and propels Ennio Morricone's legendary score to the operatic height it deserves. The audio commentary track splits between numerous individuals. Much of the talking is done by Leone experts Sir Christopher Frayling and Dr. Sheldon Hall. Their comments sometimes fall into play-by-play, over-explaining the actions on the screen, but they do provide many fascinating facts about the making of the movie (filming locations, set design, the actors), mentions of the many other Westerns that the film quotes, and observations on Sergio Leone's unique style. There are also brief interruptions from directors who are Leone fans or who knew him personally, such as John Milius, John Carpenter, Alex Cox, and Bernardo Bertolucci (who wrote the screen story of the film along with Dario Argento). All have interesting stories to tell (Carpenter is pretty funny, since he admits he hasn't seen the film in a while, and is quite amused by what he sees). Cardinale pops in very briefly to talk about the love scene between her and Henry Fonda.The second disc contains a lengthy documentary, which goes into great depth on the making of the film. All the speakers from the commentary take part in the interviews, and they are joined by actor Gabriele Ferzetti (who plays Mr. Morton in the film), composer Ennio Morricone, and archival interviews with Henry Fonda and Sergio Leone himself. The only problem with the documentary is the artificial separation of it into three sections. Another documentary provides historical background on the coming of the railroad, and adds extra perspective on the film's story. There's also a feature that allows you to compare the filming locations in Monument Valley to what they look like today, the original U.S. trailer, and a stills gallery. All around, great bonus material for a film that deserves them.For those of you who have never seen "Once Upon a Time in the West," I envy your first experience with it. It moves slowly, deliberately, with time and suspense stretched out and distended to their limits, but even if you think you have a short attention span, it's impossible not to fall under Leone's spell of Western ritual, close-ups, wide-spanning landscape shots, sudden explosions of violence, and his ability to inject doses of mythic wonder into every single shot. And if you've already a fan of this film, this DVD set is a dream come true. Buy it, invite all your friends over, and introduce them to the best Euro-Western ever produced.