Fresh and Exciting

Excellent but underrated film

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

This movie was so-so. It had it's moments, but wasn't the greatest.

Ever since I saw The Good, The Bad and The Ugly I have loved spaghetti westerns. This movie doesn't seem to have the budget or the actors as the aforementioned movie, but it's got loads of grit! There are some great scenes (pulling the coffin and fight scenes) as well as some savage dialogue from the anti hero. If you're in the mood for a gritty old school spaghetti western then look no further.

Django is directed by Sergio Corbucci and it stars Franco Nero, José Bódalo, Loredana Nusciak, Ángel Álvarez and Eduardo Fajardo.Django (Nero), dragging a coffin behind him, saves a woman from some bandits and soon finds himself in the middle of war between two factions - which he may be able to use to his advantage.1966 was a stellar year for Spaghetti Westerns, Leone was putting the crown on his "Dollars" trilogy, Damiani produced a political firecracker and Sollima crafted one of the finest "manhunt" Oaters of this sub-genre. Then there is this, Django, a Pasta Western that is synonymous with the form.I fought for the North!Django is a treat, it's violent and cruel, funny and cheeky, and pleasing on the eyes and ears - so pretty much it contains all the best things that made the original wave of Spaghetti's so palatable. Undeniably it owes a "lot" to A Fistful of Dollars and Yojimbo, but it's still its own beast, a baroque Gothic piece of work that positively revels in nihilism. The graphic violence is wonderfully cartoonish, the iconography unbound, and in Nero - eyes likes chips of ice - the pic has one of the coolest and baddest men on the planet. Nusciak brings the sex and sizzle, coming off like a Spag Raquel Welch, whilst the villains are delightfully vile and scuzzy.The setting is superb, a muddy cold hell of a town with a brothel as the fulcrum of the piece. Naturally there's a cemetery, which will play host to some of that iconography mentioned earlier. Religion gets short shrift, racial prejudice given a caustic once over, while it's worth mentioning there's more than a hint of social realism pulsing away as Corbucci brings the blood and thunder. OK! It's light in plotting, and it's not even Corbucci's best film, but the stylised violence, the visuals and a cracking soundtrack easily take you away from the fodder of the story.It would spawn a multitude of rip-offs, name checks and influence a whole host of film makers, but this is the real deal. A Spag Western worth revisiting to see just when it was a sub-genre of quality, this before hundreds of poor band wagon jumpers began to soil the Spaghetti Western name. 8.5/10

A man dragging around a coffin arrives in a muddy border town where he rescues a woman and becomes involved in a struggle between rival groups. Sergio Corbucci's version of A Fistful of Dollars (or Yojimbo, if you prefer), Django stands as one of the better second tier spaghetti westerns. Stylish and violent with nice direction from Corbucci and a good score form Luis Bacalov, including the catchy title song. Franco Nero is a handsome lead but he lacks the screen presence of a Clint Eastwood. He's also badly dubbed with a disconnected voice that doesn't remotely seem like it could come from him (because the unimposing voice belongs to Tony Russel). To make matters worse, Django talks a lot for a "mysterious stranger" type. Despite my complaint about Django's distracting voice, as well as some script gremlins I won't bother getting into, it's still an enjoyable movie. I love spaghetti westerns for their style and fresh approach to a genre that had largely grown stale by the time films like these were made. Some of them, like the ones made by Sergio Leone, were exceptional films that stood with (and sometimes above) the best American westerns. Others, like Django, were simply entertaining time-passers with some memorable elements but not much meat on the bone. Nothing wrong with that. This is a good, but not great, spaghetti western that will please die-hard fans of the subgenre but those seeking something more like Leone's work will likely be disappointed.

A mysterious stranger called Django wanders into a deserted southern town, pulling a coffin behind him, and proceeds to make enemies with the local posse of outlaws. What is his agenda, and what has he got in that coffin ?Sergio Corbucci for me is the Bad Boy of Italian cinema where filmmakers tend to divide into the acclaimed and the hacks, with the best directors almost always being in the latter camp. Corbucci made exploitation films, but his method of gaining notoriety was to make his films more brutal, more sadistic, more shocking than anyone else's. Django is a good example of this - literally everything in the whole movie is horrible. Everyone is a killer or a hooker, nobody trusts anybody or cares about anything, the only pastimes are torture and murder and the town the action takes place in is an empty, worthless, ramshackle set of buildings situated in a sea of mud. Unlike the philosophical or reflective tone of Sergio Leone's sixties westerns, Corbucci revels in the violence, gleefully emphasising cruelty and injustice, so that the movie in many ways plays more like a horror film. The fact that it's so hypnotic despite this jarringly blunt callousness is great testament to the skill of its makers and to a then-unknown Nero's iconic charm. The telephoto camera-work by Enzo Barboni literally mires us in the dirt and Luis Bacalov's alternately jarring/soothing music is a perfect accompaniment to the action. Django was a huge hit in mainland Europe on its release and prompted dozens of knock-offs and imitators; the best of these is probably the 1967 Django Kill with Tomas Milian, although there was an "official" sequel in 1987 with Nero reprising the role called Django 2: Il Grande Ritorno, and a revived interest in the character following Quentin Tarantino's recent Django Unchained. A must-see for all cult film fans and a depressing but arresting flourish of Corbucci's talent.