If you grew up in Germany during the 70s and 80s, there was no way around Bud Spencer and Terence Hill. Whole scenes were "re-enacted" in the schoolyards (needless to say, often with painful results), most kids knew the one-liners by heart and most people were a bit vary about a Bud Spencer / Terence Hill comedy without Terence Hill. However, director Clucher being a master of his trade – always over the top yet never crossing the line from physical slapstick into cheap gags or infantile grimacing, that ailed many of contemporary Italian comedies – managed win the hearts of his fans over, even though Hill is nowhere in sight.
Stepping away from the Western setting of former films and transferring the story to an Al Capone-time Chicago, Bud plays an out of his luck wrestler, who gets on the wrong side with the mafia after having refused to have a fight rigged. He teams up with the fast-talking crook with a golden heart Giuliano Gemma. Both being out of work and on an empty stomach, the unlikely duo hires themselves out as muscle for the local Mafiosi, the ever-smiling Don Angelo (legend has it, he was once shot in the knee and wears an perpetual grin ever since). Their job is to shake down the Italian-immigrant tenants on Angelos territory, a place of squalor where most people consider suicide a happy alternative and where the only thing there is to feed the babies are apricot seeds (which can hence be recycled). It goes without saying that, despite trying to act the tough guys, neither Bud nor Giuliano have it in them to rob from those who have nothing and rather opt to deliver food and medicine to the needy. Unwilling to return to their boss empty handed, they decide to rob the rival Mafiosi from across the street, thus unwittingly starting a turf war.
Like said, there's everything you would expect from a Bud Spencer / Terence Hill comedy (except Hill of course): Fast talking gags and one-liners en masse, fight-scenes that seem to come straight out of a Asterix-comic and of course – at the end of the day – no participants in the movie were hurt or killed during the making. Spencer is his usual Bud-Spencer-persona; rough on the outside, soft like overcooked spaghetti on the inside and Gemma doesn't commit the cardinal sin of trying to imitate Hill (too much). Rather, he relies on his own natural charm, playing a looser that essentially prevails through his charm and big mouth. Almost sad that Spencer and Gemma never again paired up after this movie (and that many of Spencers future sidekicks would be nothing short of obnoxious).
Sad also that Spencers career, like Hills, would a few years ahead take a rather steep decline downhill, but this kind of comedy was rather repetitive and did come with an expiration-date (something Spencer didn't seem to have understood). It's probably a case of nostalgia, mixed with a hint of "you had to have been there to understand", but "Even Angels Eat Beans" remains one of the best Spencer-solo-effort, deserving within this range a 8/10.
Stepping away from the Western setting of former films and transferring the story to an Al Capone-time Chicago, Bud plays an out of his luck wrestler, who gets on the wrong side with the mafia after having refused to have a fight rigged. He teams up with the fast-talking crook with a golden heart Giuliano Gemma. Both being out of work and on an empty stomach, the unlikely duo hires themselves out as muscle for the local Mafiosi, the ever-smiling Don Angelo (legend has it, he was once shot in the knee and wears an perpetual grin ever since). Their job is to shake down the Italian-immigrant tenants on Angelos territory, a place of squalor where most people consider suicide a happy alternative and where the only thing there is to feed the babies are apricot seeds (which can hence be recycled). It goes without saying that, despite trying to act the tough guys, neither Bud nor Giuliano have it in them to rob from those who have nothing and rather opt to deliver food and medicine to the needy. Unwilling to return to their boss empty handed, they decide to rob the rival Mafiosi from across the street, thus unwittingly starting a turf war.
Like said, there's everything you would expect from a Bud Spencer / Terence Hill comedy (except Hill of course): Fast talking gags and one-liners en masse, fight-scenes that seem to come straight out of a Asterix-comic and of course – at the end of the day – no participants in the movie were hurt or killed during the making. Spencer is his usual Bud-Spencer-persona; rough on the outside, soft like overcooked spaghetti on the inside and Gemma doesn't commit the cardinal sin of trying to imitate Hill (too much). Rather, he relies on his own natural charm, playing a looser that essentially prevails through his charm and big mouth. Almost sad that Spencer and Gemma never again paired up after this movie (and that many of Spencers future sidekicks would be nothing short of obnoxious).
Sad also that Spencers career, like Hills, would a few years ahead take a rather steep decline downhill, but this kind of comedy was rather repetitive and did come with an expiration-date (something Spencer didn't seem to have understood). It's probably a case of nostalgia, mixed with a hint of "you had to have been there to understand", but "Even Angels Eat Beans" remains one of the best Spencer-solo-effort, deserving within this range a 8/10.