User Reviews

*********POSSIBLE SPOILERS**********

Satisfying Italian western action pic has a crew of five assembled by "The Dutchman" (Graves) to fulfill a "mission impossible" western style -- they must rob a train car full of money without disturbing the soldiers in the other cars. Most of the film's action concerns the team's preparations for the attack (and their conflicts with each other) and a lot of drama is built up around the fact that everyone pretty much expects Graves' brilliant plan to fail. What really raises this film a bit above the norm is its witty gimmick -- the plan actually DOES go off smoothly, but their success only leads to startling revelations after the fact.

Not a great movie, but good action and drama make for an above-average beer and popcorn movie. Should please fans of action westerns, but may not particularly please the fans of (scriptwriter, later director) Dario Argento, who may expect more visceral violence and who will probably miss the flair that Argento brings to his films as a director (he never was an exceptional writer, but here he has written a very clever story, and he should be given credit where it's due).

"Mission Impossible" star Peter Graves made director Don Taylor's "Un Esercito di Cinque Uomini" while on hiatus from his hit contemporary CBS-TV series, and this epic adventure reunited both the star and the director who had worked together previously on director Billy Wilder's first-class, black & white, World War II P.O.W. classic "Stalag 13" in 1953. "They Call Me Trinity," "Trinity Is Still My Name," and "Sons of Trinity" producer Italo Zingarelli financed this improbable military heist escapade set in 20th century Mexico during the political/agrarian revolution. Scenarists Marc Richards of "Gilligan's Planet" and notable writer & director Dario Argento of "Suspiria" cobble together enough surefire formulaic elements from John Sturges' "The Magnificent Seven," Sam Peckinpah's "The Wild Bunch," and Jules Dassin's "Riffi" to provide audiences with 105 minutes of gripping, flavorful entertainment, especially if you relish Italian westerns lensed on location in sunny Spain.

Indeed, "Un Esercito di Cinque Uomini" belongs to a sub-genre of westerns about yet another group of professional warriors coming to the aid of the downtrodden, like "The Magnificent Seven" and its sequels. These westerns became a dime a dozen not only in America, but they also appeared in droves in Europe. In fact, this represented a trend throughout the 1960s and the 1970s and later became a staple of network television with shows like "The A-Team" and "The Unit." The modern day setting that adds trucks and machine guns to the storyline aligns it with "The Wild Bunch" about a gang of American outlaws performing one last mission before the sun sets on them. Furthermore, the mission that these guys are hired to carry out at a thousand dollars per man involves hijacking a heavily armed train. In "The Wild Bunch," the anti-heroes stole munitions from a U.S. Army train, while our heroes rob a military train with a fortune in gold set to the dictator of Mexico—Huerta—to shore up his embattled government.

Unlike "The Wild Bunch," the heroes in "Un Esercito di Cinque Uomini" are largely criminals on the run who redeem themselves by helping the working class. In a sense, this movie amounts to a complex amalgamation of the spaghetti western in general as well as the political spaghetti western in particular, movies such as "The Mercenary," "Companeros," "Duck, You Sucker," and "A Bullet for the General." The hybrid nature of Taylor's suspenseful western continues with its casting of Japanese actor Teturo Tamba. "Un Esercito di Cinque Uomini" appears to have pre-dated and perhaps even inspired spaghetti/samurai westerns such as "Red Sun" (1972) with Charles Bronson and Toshirô Mifune, "The Fighting Fists of Shangai Joe" (1972) with Klaus Kinski and Chen Lee, and the Lee Van Cleef oater "The Stranger and the Gunfighter" with Leih Lo, to name a few.

The Dutchman (Peter Graves) assembles a crack team at a thousand dollars a man to rob a gold train. He hires Mesito (Bud Spencer of the "Trinity" comedies), Captain Nicolas Augustus (James Daly of "Medical Center"), Samurai (Tetsuro Tamba of "You Only Live Twice") and Luis (Nino Castelnuovo of "Rocco and his Brothers") to help him steal a half-million dollars in gold from a heavily fortified military train. The Dutchman chooses Augustus because the man handles explosives well. He needs the brute strength of Mesito, knife hurling talents of Samurai, and Luis' ability to leap and bound. Each of these characters is essentially on the lam. Mesito is hiding out after a cattle rustling job on a chicken farm when Luis recruits him to the mission. Luis finds Augustus hustling poor miners at poker, and Samurai is performing in a circus. The first hour of the film sets up the plot and the remainder deals with the hijacking and getting away with the loot. Along the way, our heroes get captured by the Mexican Army. Unfortunately, this is the weakest part of the story. They escape from jail far too easily.

Naturally, our heroes encounter the inevitable complications that are part and parcel of heist yarns. Nothing can go for long as planned otherwise there would be no suspense and we wouldn't worry about our heroes getting caught. One character loses his nerve in the middle of the robbery, while another falls off the train. The first one has to improvise an explosives device that will blast off a train coupling without alerted everybody with a spectacular blast. The second one—and the best—has Samurai scrambling across country to catch up with the train.

The opening credits steeps the viewer in the violence and turmoil of the day with a fascinating, black & white montage of pictures set to one of Ennio Morricone's brilliant orchestral scores. Morricone's music enhances the action whether it require strident music and an evocatively mournful tune. Without Morricone's music, "Un Esercito di Cinque Uomini" would suffer considerably.

Richards and Argento never let our characters off the hook from start to finish and Taylor directs with his eye on constant action. Any lulls in the story serve as a way to generate suspense. Taylor's best touch is the lack of dialogue during the actual train hijacking that recalls the quiet robbery in Dassin's "Riffi." Of course, characterization is sketchy, but anything essential to our knowledge is furnished. For example, Dutchman's last minute conversion from mercenary to revolutionary is explained by the death of his Mexican wife, an allusion intentional or otherwise to the Lee Marvin character in Richard Brooks' "The Professionals" (1966) whose wife died at the hands of the Mexican Army so that he works against them in a similar pay-for-hire mission.

Altogether, "Un Esercito di Cinque Uomini" qualifies as a solid, suspenseful, spaghetti western version of "Mission: Impossible" with the emphasis on the mission than random gunfights. The last ten minutes involves what appears to be double-crosses and betrayals, but everything works out happily for our heroes who survive several tight spots.

Best known for the TV series 'Mission: Impossible' at the time, Peter Graves is similarly in charge of a mission here: rob half a million in gold from a heavily fortified / guarded train. This currency will go towards funding the revolutionaries during the time of the Mexican revolution. Of course, "The Dutchman" (Graves) will need to assemble some men for the mission. They will include a strongman (Bud Spencer), a gambler / explosives expert (James Daly), a samurai (Tetsuro Tanba), and a former circus acrobat (Nino Castelnuovo).

While "The 5-Man Army" isn't always that credible (uh, they should be able to *see* you guys hiding under the train, for one thing), it has a wonderful spirit of adventure and excitement. Wonderfully shot by Enzo Barboni, it has just about everything: a good sense of humor, some genuine poignancy, a fair amount of tension, and well executed action. As you can expect, the climactic train robbery doesn't go that smoothly. One of the men will fall off the train, and have to haul ass across the country in order to get back on. And Daly will drop some of his supplies along the way. Some people may feel that the film is too lacking in story, but it shows its audience a good enough time that it doesn't matter all that much. The screenplay is credited to Marc Richards and future director Dario Argento, who actually did some work on this film, and who would make his official debut with "The Bird with the Crystal Plumage" the following year. Although American filmmaker Don Taylor ("Escape from the Planet of the Apes", "The Final Countdown"), a former actor, is given sole credit as director, lovely co-star Daniela Giordano maintains that producer Italo Zingarelli was responsible for much of that task. Composer Ennio Morricone once again displays great talent by coming up with an effectively rousing score. It may not be destined for iconic status, like some of his other work, but it's still enjoyable to listen to.

This eclectic team at the heart of the picture is really fun to watch. Graves handles himself with style. Daly has one memorable speech where he feels that he and his comrades won't survive the mission. Spencer is quite amusing, and gets to show off a truly healthy appetite. Young Castelnuovo is a delight as the mouthy Luiz. And Tanba never gets to say much, but he doesn't have to. He still has an effective presence on screen.

Highly charged entertainment, with a truly uplifting ending.

Eight out of 10.