Opening with its titular character dragging a heavy coffin behind him through a bleak, muddy landscape, Django immediately establishes its tone: gritty, tough, with an aura of death omnipresent. While perhaps not quite on a par with Sergio Leone's iconic 'man with no name' movies in terms of overall style, lacking those films' directorial finesse, Eastwood's star power, and Morricone's marvellous music (Django's theme song is cool, but not THAT cool), Django is still essential viewing for followers of the genre, a no-nonsense tale of vengeance in a law-less land where survival depends on bravery, guile and a fast trigger.
Franco Nero stars as Django, who saves prostitute Maria (Loredana Nusciak) from five men who intend to kill her for trying to escape a nearby town, which has been caught in the middle of a war between Major Jackson (Eduardo Fajardo) with his Klan-like army, and Mexican general Hugo Rodriguez (José Bódalo) and his followers. Arriving in town, Django makes himself comfy in the local brothel/saloon and waits, finger on trigger, ready to settle an old score and make himself rich in the process.
Sergio Corbucci's direction mightn't be as classy or as iconic as Leone's, but the sheer level of violence in Django makes the film almost as memorable as any of the Eastwood vehicles, Nero's character happily machine gunning dozens of bad guys without a second thought. And although it's not his finger on the trigger, it's his plan to use his Gatling gun to cut a swathe though the innocent guards of a nearby fort in order to steal the gold within. Considering that this is the hero of the piece, it's easy to see why the film was refused a certificate in the UK until 1993 (when the Video Nasty debacle had finally subsided).
It's this film's 'excessive and nauseating violence' (as the BBFC put it in 1967), combined with Django's unflappable stoicism in the face of great adversity (smashed hands don't stop our hero from tackling the bad guys), that go to make this highly influential western a satisfying experience for fans of Spaghetti cinema.
Franco Nero stars as Django, who saves prostitute Maria (Loredana Nusciak) from five men who intend to kill her for trying to escape a nearby town, which has been caught in the middle of a war between Major Jackson (Eduardo Fajardo) with his Klan-like army, and Mexican general Hugo Rodriguez (José Bódalo) and his followers. Arriving in town, Django makes himself comfy in the local brothel/saloon and waits, finger on trigger, ready to settle an old score and make himself rich in the process.
Sergio Corbucci's direction mightn't be as classy or as iconic as Leone's, but the sheer level of violence in Django makes the film almost as memorable as any of the Eastwood vehicles, Nero's character happily machine gunning dozens of bad guys without a second thought. And although it's not his finger on the trigger, it's his plan to use his Gatling gun to cut a swathe though the innocent guards of a nearby fort in order to steal the gold within. Considering that this is the hero of the piece, it's easy to see why the film was refused a certificate in the UK until 1993 (when the Video Nasty debacle had finally subsided).
It's this film's 'excessive and nauseating violence' (as the BBFC put it in 1967), combined with Django's unflappable stoicism in the face of great adversity (smashed hands don't stop our hero from tackling the bad guys), that go to make this highly influential western a satisfying experience for fans of Spaghetti cinema.