A close up of a pair of eyes,a boys face,down below we see a catapult extended and loaded with a stone,back to the face,then to the catapult slowly raising,his face again and so on until finally we see the catapult directly in the boys eyeline.The stone is released and to the sound of gunshots ricocheting the stone and camera lens bounce all over the place until the stone finally comes to its resting place just before the boy who is now fully in view-it is Ringo(impressively played by the young Eugene Fernandez).Sound familiar?
Before you know it the sweet sound of those wonderful melancholic strings come within earshot introducing us to Morricones main "Sean Theme" from Duck You Sucker and the title appears - "EmeRy Films
Present - FIREARM"-written and directed by our friend The Firecracker! We return to Ringo who is now joyfully running with and caressing his dog Red.On the ground there is a mound swarming with ants but instead of pissing on them like elsewhere
Ringo pokes away with a stick,but while this happens Red has run off towards an ominous silhouette of six figures seemingly wearing ponchos and dusters.On closer inspection there's an unshaven very cool but mean looking leader Groucho(played very charismatically with a lot of humour by Victor Fernandez)wiping away a nose bleed along with five badass Mexicans including Nino(Mitchell Lee Davis)who i swear by his appearance and mannerisms is a reincarnation of Mario Brega.In fact with their course laughter and gross eating habits they could easily be mistaken for Indios gang in For A Few Dollars More and they are all standing in a stark,dried up grey surronding that looks very much like the Miocene clay of Almeria!
The bandits are wrestling over a ham sandwich,but suddenly it is snatched away by Red who proceeds to chomp into his prize.However Groucho is now seething and with little hesitation opens fire.Ringo desperately comes running over to save his pet but it is too late,Groucho finishes off the poor animal to the sneering approval of the other bandits.Groucho seeing the hatred in Ringo's eyes tosses him a pistol with which the boy frantically pulls the trigger again and again,but its useless,the gun is empty.Those bastards have now walked off but Groucho has made the biggest mistake of his life-he's dropped a bullet and Ringo still has the pistol.
I'm not going to give away any more but by now you will have figured that this is a revenge Spaghetti Western and during this movie (made in February 2005) of just under half an hour the director has very much opted for style over storyline considerations but as a Sergio Leone tribute this is very entertaining stuff.Pretty much every Leone trick in the book is utilised with the camera zooming in from all angles,gun duels drawn out to the maximum with bloody but imaginative deaths,windswept sound effects throughout and other great effects like the crunching of boots and cocking of pistols.To add to the authenticity ,like Leone everything has been overdubbed including some Spanish dialogue and i understand samples from other sw's.
Along with all this we are treated to some very effective and appropriate musical accompaniment taken from the such movies as Django,The Dollars trilogy,OUATITW,Long Days of Vengeance and The Return Of Ringo which all fit the mood of the action perfectly.In between Timothy Murphy(also one of the bandits) provides basic but dynamic acoustic guitar accompaniment including some nice staccato licks and excellent repetitive riffs ascending up the musical scale.
This is a very promising directorial debut which i understand was made on a shoestring budget .This obviously accounts for the lack such things as horses and other locations but this in no way undermines an admirable attempt at emulating the master Sergio Leone to which this movie is lovingly dedicated.
Stunningly filmed in widescreen and very recommended!!
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