Five Giants From Texas (1966) (orig. I cinque della vendetta) - Director: Aldo Florio - 4/10.
Film’s biggest demerit resides in that Florio’s style comes out toothless which is perhaps not so surprising considering this was his directional debut, but which may come as a surprise to those familiarized with his vastly superior At the End of the Rainbow. Though his learning-on-the-job direction admittedly grows better as the running time goes by, what this also means is that the former half proves pedestrian to say the least; for instance, the opening shootout in which the five’s best friend gets killed is handled in a rather soporific fashion, both photography and editing being on the underwhelming side. What exacerbates this issue is pic’s cursory script: the venture conceivably could have worked had it been outfitted with a robust narration, but the viewer is basically left in the dark as to five gunslingers’ backstories and has to do the guesswork to fill in the gaps. This would have been at least partially condonable had the narrative been equipped with a fair share of action scenes, but then again, there are not too many of those here either and with the exception of the admittedly galvanizing final gunfight, action sequences as such are few and far between. To add insult to injury, the plot unfolds at an exceptionally laggard pace, aggravating the said downsides fivefold. Except for the spectacular finale, the work turns out both narratively and visually nondescript, providing little in the way of satisfactory plot elaboration or action and progressing at a disagreeably leisurely tempo.