All Rise...

Judge Daryl Loomis thinks "pot-crazed falconer" is the perfect villain.

Editor's Note

Our review of Companeros, published October 3rd, 2001, is also available.

The Charge

When you're about to die, don't ask so many questions.

Opening Statement

For many, the Italian western consists of two types: the movies of Sergio Leone (For a Few Dollars More) and then everything else. A lot of stuff can easily get lumped together in the lower end of the spectrum, but there is more to the genre than the "Dollars" movies. It can be argued, as well, that some of those second-tier movies are more fun than Leone's stuff. One of the most consistent of these directors, and one of the only directors who could honestly compete with Leone was Sergio Corbucci (Navajo Joe), whose delirious and hilarious Compañeros can now be enjoyed in the glory of high-definition.

Facts of the Case

Swedish arms dealer Yodlaf Peterson (Franco Nero, Django) has come to Mexico to profit off the revolution, which doesn't sit too well with the freedom fighters. He has made a great deal with the government, but the money is in a locked vault and only the revolutionary Professor Xantos (Fernando Rey, The French Connection) knows the combination. Peterson is tasked with accompanying the professor to the bank, with the fun-loving but ignorant Vasco (Tomas Milian, Salome) in tow. Vasco has a history with Peterson and they want to kill each other, but they are forced to work together when they discover that Peterson's former associate, the one-handed pot-crazed falconer, John (Jack Palance, Che!) and his murderous avian friend are on their trail.

The Evidence

Compañeros is far from the best, but Corbucci's movie is one of the funniest and most outrageous the genre has to offer. It's not just chemistry between Nero and Milian, which is great (and similar to what Milian had with Lee Van Cleef a few years earlier in Sergio Solima's The Big Gundown), nor is it just the inherent ridiculousness of Jack Palance's role, which is really just the best.

It's the little things that make the movie such a delight. There's the Asian henchman with the weird radio telephone thingy instead of an ear. It's the obviously brilliant soundtrack by Ennio Morricone (The Mission) with a theme song that repeats "Comrades, let's go kill" over and over. It's the acrobatics, something that is in nearly every Corbucci movie and something I've never understood.

Unlike Leone's movies, Corbucci really likes to emphasize the comedy in the story. Tomas Milian is great at this, as seen not only here, but in The Big Gundown and its follow-up, Manaja. Nero, while not the jokester, makes for a pretty good straight man. And, if all else fails, Corbucci can fall back on a close-up of one of the most cinematic pairs of eyes in the history of movies.

As is typical for the director, the vistas are gorgeous and the filming, while nowhere near as ambitious as what Leone did, is completely competent. He was more than a journeyman, unlike a lot of the mercenary directors of the genre, even if he wasn't a genius. He was a talented filmmaker who could take a small budget and make something that feels big, or at least unique, out of it. For all of its genre conventions, there's nobody who can say that Compañeros isn't unique. For me, that's more than good enough.

Compañeros comes to Blu-ray from the good folks at Blue Underground with a very nice upgrade. The 2.35:1/1080p image is the best the movie has ever looked, with gorgeous fine detail throughout the frame. Earlier releases showed a print in fairly good shape, but there is great improvement here. Colors are bright and natural, while black levels have great depth and fullness. Landscapes and interiors are equally sharp and, overall, it is a pleasing transfer for a gorgeous western.

The sound isn't anything special, but it's perfectly good. There is a pair of tracks to choose from: the Italian for the high-falutin' people want to watch a foreign film or the English for people who just want to watch a movie. Both are dubbed anyway, so it doesn't make any difference either way. For the record, the English subtitles are fairly accurate to the dub track, which is sometimes wildly different. Anyway, it's pretty clean, with Morricone's score coming through nicely in the mono mix and dialog that is always crisp.

Extras are a brief affair. We do get a new audio commentary with writers C. Courtney Joyner and Henry Parke. They know their stuff pretty well and clearly enjoy the material, so ride a nice line between being informative and entertaining. Really, some of the absurd stuff in this movie, I can't help but crack up along with them, no matter how many times I've watched it (frankly, probably far more than it's actually worth). The other extras include a series of interviews with Nero, Milian, and Morricone, all of whom are great fun to listen to, a poster and still gallery, and some trailers, but these were all from the previous DVD release, so there's not much to say about that stuff.

Closing Statement

Compañeros is not the greatest of Spaghetti Westerns and, really, it's not even close. But Sergio Corbucci and his obsessions with missing limbs, red-cloaked assassins and weirdo henchmen make his movies particularly amusing and this one, most of all. If someone tries to argue to me that Palance as pot-crazed falconer isn't the definition of awesome, then that person is likely dead to me. It's as simple as that.

The Verdict

Case dismissed.

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