Rating: 
Summary: An American Style Spaghetti Western !
Review: First, a word of warning: if you think Texas Adios is another of those ultra-violent, stylized spaghetti westerns, you may be disappointed. On the other hand, if you like your westerns on the melodramatic side, you'll enjoy this movie. In fact, this one has a more "classic" feel than say "Django", as Franco Nero himself pointed out in an interview included on the DVD. Away from the always dependable Nero, the movie lacks a good, charismatic villain a la Gian Maria Volonte and the acting level is undistinguished. I did enjoy watching Nero in the most stylish leather trench coat this side of the Rio Grande !
Rating:
Summary: Nero plays Cooper
Review: Franco Nero is surely one of the pleasures of this film-- or rather, watching Nero before he started to parody the types of roles that made him famous in the first place (as he would soon do in Corbucci's work). Nero's carefully controlled performance (indeed, he seems to be modelling his persona after a Gary Cooper, Henry Fonda, or early Burt Lancaster)lends gravity to a *very* thin plotline (sheriff Nero and his younger brother head south to finally find their father's murderer who [surprise!] turns out to be the younger brother's actual dad). Unfortunately, the generally good acting can't always hide the fact that there just isn't anything behind these stereotypes. If "For a Few Dollars More" (which, in an interview on the DVD, Nero mentions was filmed at the same time as "Adios") Leone was busy sending up the American western and consequently helping to forge a new genre, then writer/director Ferdinando Baldi was a bit too busy trying to fit every possible stock character into this "Americanized" spaghetti western--his screenplay just can't support the burden of his Oedipalized, archetypal tale. Even the superior music score seems a faithful copy of Elmer Bernstein or Max Steiner rather than a unique Morricone-like "homage". The outstanding photography (perfectly captured by this flawless anamorphic widescreen print)also helps to make up for some of the erratic pacing. In short, not a particularly inventive spaghetti Western, but fun viewing.
Rating: 
Summary: Episode 1 - The Franco Menace?
Review: I keep saying this but nobody seems to know what I am going on about: This must be 'the other' big influence on the original Star Wars film! The first being "The Hidden Fortress" which Lucas has credited. But as far as I know has never credited this.Has anybody else spotted the 'cantina' scene (pistols instead of light sabres) - or the 'old ben' character in the desert... or the son going to avenge his father's death then finding out that... well you know the rest. There's a whole bunch of other bits you'll recognise too even if you're not a Star Wars nerd. The lead character even looks a bit like Luke Skywalker! Besides that, it's a great film with a great score and beautifully shot. This, along with Django, Bullet for the General (Quien Sabe), Compañeros, are all glorious in their own ways (and available on DVD!) but my favourite - just because it's a film like no other is The Great Silence... BUY IT NOW!!!
Rating:
Summary: Episode 1 - The Franco Menace?
Review: I keep saying this but nobody seems to know what I am going on about: This must be 'the other' big influence on the original Star Wars film! The first being "The Hidden Fortress" which Lucas has credited. But as far as I know has never credited this. Has anybody else spotted the 'cantina' scene (pistols instead of light sabres) - or the 'old ben' character in the desert... or the son going to avenge his father's death then finding out that... well you know the rest. There's a whole bunch of other bits you'll recognise too even if you're not a Star Wars nerd. The lead character even looks a bit like Luke Skywalker! Besides that, it's a great film with a great score and beautifully shot. This, along with Django, Bullet for the General (Quien Sabe), Compañeros, are all glorious in their own ways (and available on DVD!) but my favourite - just because it's a film like no other is The Great Silence... BUY IT NOW!!!
Rating: 
Summary: GREAT SPAGHETTI WESTERN
Review: It's great to finally get this wonderful Franco Nero Spaghetti Western on DVD. Anamorphic widescreen is the only format any serious fan of the genre should watch this great revenge story of a tough gun-man who, together with his younger brother, goes to Mexico to find the man who killed his father many years ago. This movie has everything somebody expects from a great Spaghetti Western, great direction by Ferdinando Baldi, great looking actors and a beautiful score by Anton Garcia Abril. This is the way, an entertaining Spaghetti Western should be made.
Rating:
Summary: GREAT SPAGHETTI WESTERN
Review: It's great to finally get this wonderful Franco Nero Spaghetti Western on DVD. Anamorphic widescreen is the only format any serious fan of the genre should watch this great revenge story of a tough gun-man who, together with his younger brother, goes to Mexico to find the man who killed his father many years ago. This movie has everything somebody expects from a great Spaghetti Western, great direction by Ferdinando Baldi, great looking actors and a beautiful score by Anton Garcia Abril. This is the way, an entertaining Spaghetti Western should be made.
Rating:
Summary: Action-packed fun
Review: OK. So there's no way you can claim this is a classic. The dialogue is shocking (but that's the case with most spaghetti westerns). But I'm going to give it 5 stars for sheer enjoyment value. Like the great spaghetti westerns of the mid sixties (Navajo Joe, Django, the Leone trilogy, The Hills Run Red, Death Rides a Horse), Texas Adio starts with a hiss and a roar and just keeps on going at a break-neck pace, building up to what has to be one of the loudest gunfights in western history. The action is brutal and frequent as in all classic spaghettis, although the tone and manner is more like those big boisterous American westerns of the forties and fifties. I''ve only seen this on a wiedescreen version from the UK, so I can't comment on the DVD extras. But get it for the film content alone. it's one of the best.
Rating:
Summary: Action-packed fun
Review: OK. So there's no way you can claim this is a classic. The dialogue is shocking (but that's the case with most spaghetti westerns). But I'm going to give it 5 stars for sheer enjoyment value. Like the great spaghetti westerns of the mid sixties (Navajo Joe, Django, the Leone trilogy, The Hills Run Red, Death Rides a Horse), Texas Adio starts with a hiss and a roar and just keeps on going at a break-neck pace, building up to what has to be one of the loudest gunfights in western history. The action is brutal and frequent as in all classic spaghettis, although the tone and manner is more like those big boisterous American westerns of the forties and fifties. I''ve only seen this on a wiedescreen version from the UK, so I can't comment on the DVD extras. But get it for the film content alone. it's one of the best.
Rating:
Summary: Nero rides again
Review: Spaghetti westerns are, in my opinion, generally the best fictional films about the American West. You can argue that John Wayne made a bunch of great movies about life in the Old West, and you would be right to say so, but for some reason the Italians captured perfectly the specific elements of the era that made their movies seem more realistic. The frontier was a dirty, violent place full of unsavory types trying to get rich quick. Italian westerns capture this mood expertly whereas American films portray characters whose outfits look like they just came back from the dry cleaners. Hollywood films also tend to apply a black and white dichotomy onto their characters, the old "good guys wear white, bad guys wear black" philosophy that obscures the reality of the time and place. Not so in Italian films, where even the good guys often have distinctly unsavory traits. It's too bad spaghetti westerns went the way of the dinosaurs a few decades back; I never tire of watching these films even though I am not an expert on the genre. "Texas, Adios" is a part of the larger Anchor Bay "Once Upon a Time in Italy" spaghetti western box set, and serves as an excellent example of how powerful the genre once was.
The always awesome Franco Nero stars as Burt Sullivan, a slightly corrupt Texas sheriff with a fast gun and a chip on his shoulder. According to this lawman, his father died years before as a direct result of a confrontation with Cisco Delgado (Jose Suarez), a man who then moved to Mexico to build a small empire. Sullivan spends years stewing about revenge until he suddenly learns of his nemesis's whereabouts. Taking his younger brother Jim (Alberto Dell'Acqua) along for the ride, Sullivan bids adios to Texas and heads south of the border. Life threatening calamities pop up right from the start. When cashing in silver coins for pesos at a bank in a small village, Burt and Jim witness a gang of desperados gun down a bunch of meek peasants. Then a particularly loathsome looking thug beats young Jim Sullivan senseless in a bar after the youth makes a loud inquiry about the location of Delgado. Burt roars to the rescue, leaving behind a pile of bodies and a warning about staying out of other people's business, but the point has been made. Obviously, Delgado is a man of some reputation in the area, and even asking about him in the wrong company will result in extreme violence.
We soon learn exactly why everyone fears Delgado so much. It turns out that this guy owns a ton of land in Northern Mexico, employs a huge army of goons to enforce his iron will, and wishes to build even more wealth. When a local peasant refuses to sell out to Delgado, the warlord strings up the man's three sons and threatens to kill them. Relenting at the last moment, he orders them branded with hot irons instead. Nice chap, eh? He gets the land eventually by pistol whipping and killing the father. Burt and Jim eventually do face down this cruel hombre after a lengthy journey fraught with perils, but both find out that their old enemy has a few secrets up his sleeve. Burt wishes to take the warlord back to Texas in order to face charges for his father's murder, a wish leading to a shattering revelation from Delgado. Jim, on the other hand, soon discovers that the man he and his brother despise knows something about his lineage that could dash cold water all over the idea of bloody retribution. Nothing is what it initially seems in "Texas, Adios," as even the bad guy possesses endearing traits that make justice at best a tricky proposition. Fortunately, plenty of shootouts, a peasant uprising, and a high body count help propel the movie to its inevitable showdown conclusion.
"Texas, Adios" is an early spaghetti western. Made a year after Sergio Corbucci's innovative "Django" (also starring Franco Nero), the film contains in embryonic form many of the ideas we would see later on in countless other genre entries. For example, the moral ambiguity of both the good and bad characters are on full display here. Too, there's a thread of cruelty--the branding scene, the killing of innocent civilians--in the film that tells the audience immediately this picture is not your normal western. Of course the dubbing, particularly bad in this film, would never appear in an American film about the Old West. Simultaneously, "Texas, Adios" contains many elements that link it to classic American westerns. The musical score used for the picture doesn't sound anything like the great scores of later films composed by the likes of Ennio Morricone. The general look and feel of the movie resembles more an episode of "Gunsmoke" or "Bonanza" than it does an Italian genre flick. "Texas, Adios" is obviously a film straddling the increasingly blurry line between the American and Italian western genres.
The DVD contains a beautiful widescreen picture transfer, a six-minute interview with Franco Nero, and a trailer for the movie. Nero, outside of Clint Eastwood, is perhaps the most recognizable face in this cinematic genre. While I don't think anyone would say "Texas, Adios" is Nero's best work spaghetti western role (he's much, much better in "Companeros"), it's still fun to watch the man gun down the baddies and right wrongs. When I think about how many Italian westerns are floating around out there, yet to find a DVD release, I feel immensely disappointed. It's to Anchor Bay's credit that they released ANY of these films, let alone a great boxed set of some of the best entries in the genre. Fans will definitely want to check out this collection. Here's to hoping more of these films will soon emerge on DVD.
Rating:
Summary: Are Justice And Revenge One And The Same?
Review: Terrific fast paced and tightly plotted spaghetti western directed by Fernando Baldi. Franco Nero is the second greatest western actor next to Clint Eastwood. Great score and some potent shootouts. A well rounded film with an interesting thematic message on retribution and vengeance that rings true throughout. One of the best italian westerns I have ever seen.
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