From time to time you came across a SW that seems to be part of the good old low budget in line production side of things, but for some reason it sticks with you, and in this case even end up liking it, Quintana its one of those cases and I’ll start for one of the main reasons
SOUNDTRACK
Just plain great, I liked so much that the all film could work without dialogue, just image and music, the director knew what he had in hands, so music comes as a constant across the all film, the guitar sounds are sometimes brilliant, but the all score is great.
STORY/PLOT
Weak , but out of the ordinary, for once our hero is not some skeptic cynic cowboy looking for the dollars but some guy with a family to take care, and no villain kills them, not even his girlfriend, we don’t also have the usual brutal near death beating and the common last resource recovery, combine with the obvious revenge. We have some love romantic plots, and a hero decided to take care of their own people. I must confess I never was a great fan of Zorro or Coyote films or from the character himself, a masked Mexican Robin Wood type of figure, descending of the Spanish blue blood upper class, that ends up defending the poor and oppress, works well in medieval England, but not in Wild Mexico, so I wasn’t expecting much, but I liked this poncho variation, a more natural thing to me, with colts and no fencing swords.
Of course the story is a bit basic with a lot of horses running around, but the music overshadows all that, and the woman in the film also had something to say.
ACTING
Apart from Femi and Ignazio Spalla really didn’t knew anyone, this Tony Di Mitri doesn’t look much like a hero, but it doesn’t spoil the film, and the main bad guy looked like a good actor. You couldn’t expect much from a film that got an actor famous for several credits in “Pornochachadas” (Brazilian actor Celso Faria), you really know you’re in the low budget side of things when that happens, but still the acting wasn’t bad. As for Femi let’s just put this way, if I had to choose between her and Rosalba I would go for (the two really) Femi any time.
DIRECTOR
Sadly the man had a short life, I already liked other SW with his production credits (Cjamango) and also liked this one, the framing with the 45º angle views were a nice touch, and the all film looked very realistic with the sets and costumes looking great, I must say I almost didn’t notice the usual settings for Italian soil made westerns, good job on that aspect. The action scenes apart from the night duel weren’t that great, with everyone hitting the dust like if they were figures from some old video game, in any case the photography work was good and original in some cases. The film looked also different from the SW majority, not that isn’t much classic western influenced, but doest had that cheap felling from some similar productions, and at begging I could sense some neorealist esthetic, with the old folks and the rural look appearing in the image, and that is always a good thing.
CONCLUSION
Not 4 stars material but I would go more than 3 a strong 3.5 for me, the soundtrack is a clear 5 that’s for sure. In the end I liked because the director was able to run away from the common stereotypes, not to create something new, but something different from the usual at this level of production.
Right now, they have begun with a little over 100 with two or three movies being wrongly categorized. Still, working out the bugs I guess.
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