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Review
by
Brian Lindsey
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8
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10 |
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10
= Highest Rating |
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Film
scholar Sir Christopher Frayling hails this as
director Sergio Leone's first "mature"
work —
the Italian maestro's previous movies were epic
in style but not in terms of theme, subtext or
physical scope. Despite its title, Duck
You Sucker (there's no comma after "Duck"
in the credits) is a much deeper film, tackling
serious subjects. Characters have motivations
beyond simple revenge or getting rich; they are
changed in the course of events and by their interaction.
Violence has real-world consequences that the
protagonists cannot manipulate to their advantage.
The heroes may still possess that mythic sense
of unflappable cool that is the trademark of Leone's
spaghetti western icons (at least James Coburn's
character does), yet they're depicted in a more
realistic manner, rife with flaws and plagued
by inner demons. And the scale is bigger than
ever before.
Revolutionary
Mexico is the setting. In 1913 it is a land torn
asunder by violent rebellion, brutal government
repression and lawlessness. Bandit chieftain Juan
Miranda (Lion
of the Desert's Rod Steiger) wants nothing
to do with politics. His goal is to rob the bank
at Mesa Verde —
a cherished dream since childhood —
and live happily ever after with his family. Juan
may be an uneducated peasant but he's crafty and
cunning. 'Take the money and run' and 'keep your
head down' are the twin pillars of his philosophy.
As he sees it, participating in the revolt against
the military dictatorship is a sure way to get
killed. It doesn't take any book-learnin' to know
that a dead man can't enjoy his wealth, ill-gotten
or otherwise.
A chance encounter with
a renegade Irishman leads Juan to believe that
the key to cracking the Mesa Verde bank is finally
within his grasp. John Mallory
(Coburn) is an IRA terrorist on the run, wanted
for murder by the British. An explosives expert,
he's ostensibly in Mexico to work for a mining
company although the real reason is somewhat more
complicated. It's no coincidence that Mallory
sought haven in a country in the throes of revolution.
Fighting for Ireland's independence made
him a fugitive and destroyed his personal life
(as we learn in a series of progressively longer
flashbacks); now revolutionary idealism is all
Mallory has left. But his disillusionment is deepening
and he's hitting the booze pretty hard. For reasons
he keeps to himself the Irishman teams up with
Juan to break into the Banco Nacional.
For Juan, the culmination of his criminal career
will unexpectedly place him in the front ranks
of the very revolution he seeks to avoid...
With
Duck
You Sucker Sergio Leone evolved as a filmmaker.
This was the first time
he used live sound recording as opposed to post-synchronization.
His Once
Upon a Time in the West (1968) hadn't
featured any set-pieces on the scale of the Civil
War battle in The
Good, the Bad & the Ugly; Duck
sees him utilizing a substantial budget to maximum
visual effect, even topping GBU's
bridge destruction scene with one of the biggest
real explosions ever staged for a motion picture.
Another sequence is particularly stunning —
the 40-second tracking shot in which hundreds
of peasants are mercilessly gunned down, Einsatzgruppen-style,
by Mexican Army soldiers. (Imagine
David Lean re-staging the 1941 mass executions
at Babi Yar.) In bringing the spaghetti
western milieu into the 20th Century Leone is
happy to discard the classic mano a mano duel
— by embracing a
more realistic story he liberates himself from
the 'signature' set-piece that threatened to define
his cinema to the masses. (Here the macho romanticism
of the pistolero is supplanted by the mechanized
butchery of the machinegun, mowing down files
of men at 200 yards' range.) Most importantly,
the film isn't simply an exercise in stylish entertainment.
It makes a declarative statement. Ironically,
the message of Leone's most political film is
to eschew politics, to not get involved
(Giù la testa, "keep your head down")
— that revolutions accomplish nothing in the end
but getting a lot of mostly poor people killed.
(Leftist European critics blasted the movie upon
its release.)
Duck's
more serious approach may well alienate casual
admirers of the Dollars trilogy, especially
as the tone shifts from jocular to unrelentingly
grim in the final hour. Those with short attention
spans or unaccustomed to Leone's laconic pacing
— slowed down even further here — will at times
have their patience severely tested. Others may
balk at composer Ennio Morricone's odd, experimental
score, which people seem to either love or despise,
or even find unintentionally laughable. (You can
put me firmly in the "love" camp.) And
some folks simply can't accept the lead American
actors — A-List stars at the time, although not
the first choices for the roles — as a Mexican
and an Irishman. Even if their accents are occasionally
less than authentic-sounding, I think Steiger
and Coburn are quite good as Juan and John. (Or
is it Juan and Sean...? See the flick and
you'll know what I mean.) Playing off their contrasting
acting styles, they convincingly essay two very
disparate personalities who grow to understand
one another, become comrades and ultimately affect
each other's lives. The Eastwood and Van Cleef
characters from Leone's earlier pics are mere
cartoon figures in comparison.
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| NOTE
Given Leone's reputed fascination for historical
minutia, the prominent use of a German MG-42 machinegun
(by John in the bridge sequence and Juan in the
finale) almost 30 years before the weapon was actually
produced is an inexplicable anachronism. The IRA
did not exist in 1913, either. (It was formed nealy
six years later.) |
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After a long wait the film arrives on Region 1
DVD using the 157-minute Italian version assembled
and restored in the mid-1990s. (A good twenty
minutes of the movie was cut for the initial U.S.
theatrical release, which played briefly as Duck
You Sucker before being changed to A
Fistful Of Dynamite.) MGM's two-disc set,
which is
also included in the simultaneously released Sergio
Leone Anthology,
is a topnotch showcase for the least-seen of Leone's
movies. Disc
1 contains the film, anamorphically presented
in its original 2.35:1 aspect ratio, looking quite
fabulous. No less than five audio options are
provided —
a
newly created English 5.1 Surround mix (which
tends to favor sound effects over music and dialog),
two mono tracks (Spanish and the original English),
French stereo, and an audio commentary by Christopher
Frayling. Like the ones he recorded for GBU
and OUATITW, Frayling's
commentary is revelatory and comprehensive, a
must-listen for Leone admirers. Lapses into silence
are rare. You'll learn a lot not only about the
film and its director, but something of the history
of the Mexican Revolution as well. It's a boffo
seminar that does what all the best commentary
tracks do —
significantly increase one's appreciation of the
subject.
The
bonus features are located on Disc 2. In addition
to the U.S. theatrical trailer and a selection
of radio spots are six featurettes. The most substantial
of these is the 22-minute The Myth of Revolution,
which is more or less a Cliff Notes version of
Frayling's commentary track. (The doc hits most
of its major points should one be disinclined
to sit through the entire commentary.) In Sergio
Donati Remembers 'Duck You Sucker' (7 min.),
the screenwriter and frequent Leone collaborator
speaks about their work on the movie. The remaining
featurettes cover the film's restoration, the
different international versions, a then-and-now
comparison of shooting locations (Steiger and
Coburn's machinegun emplacements are still there
in Spain, virtually untouched), and the Leone
exhibition held at the Autry National Center's
Museum of the American West in 2005. 6/15/07
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