Hands of a Gunfighter / Ocaso de un pistolero / Mani di pistolero (Rafael Romero Marchent, 1965)

[Mickey13]

Copied from the Spagvemberfest 2023 thread:

@Mickey13

Though the motion picture might be on the old-fashioned side, this aids the movie in that the script tends to accentuate the character development and the dramatic component at the expense of the habitual action filler, which is not to say that it likewise forgoes violence and some genuine nastiness because it includes plenty of that too; the end result turns out quite gritty and gratifying in spite of the pre-Leone stylistic proclivities. The opening scene is splendid and forms an excellent point of departure, then the narrative sort of slows down, but not to an excessive extent. The general storyline does not appear all that unconventional, however, the multiple points of strife between characters render the narration suprisingly taut and three-dimensional and afford Craig Hill a chance to act.

Hill does not squander that opportunity and turns in what might be the finest performance of his career in the genre, so much to his credit, the potential of his part is fully exploited here. In addition to the aforementioned complexities, the tragic development and protagonist’s gradual relapse into the vicious spiral of violence further boost the multifaceted nature of the tale and render the viewing quite memorable and captivating; the trenchant pessimism manifesting in the way the flick unfolds, in the manner in which it approaches the theme of human nature and in the way the story eventually climaxes seems to prognosticate the subsequent developments in the genre and in light of that, the opus becomes all the more substantial and meaningful in its own right.