This Spaghetti Western is yet another take on Kurosawas Yojimbo but the performance by Nero and the non-stop violence makes this a worthy film. Directed by Sergio Corbucci (The Great Silence, The White the Yellow and the Black, Navajo Joe). Corbuccis direction in Django is both artful and brilliant along with the screen writing. Franco Nero (Enter the Ninja, Die Hard 2, Camelot). is the only actor to capture the true and powerful emotion of Django. There's the action, there is a fist-fight, a gunfight, or some random act of sadism. The ear scene was violent. (Quentin Tarantino paid homage to this in Reservoir Dog). The fist smashing scenes. The movie was indeed violent for its time. The films graveyard shootout finale is very bleak n different. Cinematography by Enzo Barboni (The Five Man Army, A Long Ride from Hell, he directed Trinity Is STILL My Name, They Call Me Trinity). Edited by Nino Baragli (Once Upon a Time in America, Caligula, Salò, Once Upon a Time in the West, The Good, the Bad and the ugly). Music by Luis Enriquez Bacalov (The Gospel According to St. Matthew, Il Postino aka the postman). One of the best films of the genre to have not been directed by Sergio Leone. Full of more interesting and stylish scenes of action. More than thirty sequels to Django have been produced since 1966. Most of these films have nothing to do with Corbuccis original film.

A man dragging around a coffin arrives in a muddy border town where he rescues a woman and becomes involved in a struggle between rival groups. Sergio Corbucci's version of A Fistful of Dollars (or Yojimbo, if you prefer), Django stands as one of the better second tier spaghetti westerns. Stylish and violent with nice direction from Corbucci and a good score form Luis Bacalov, including the catchy title song. Franco Nero is a handsome lead but he lacks the screen presence of a Clint Eastwood. He's also badly dubbed with a disconnected voice that doesn't remotely seem like it could come from him (because the unimposing voice belongs to Tony Russel). To make matters worse, Django talks a lot for a "mysterious stranger" type. Despite my complaint about Django's distracting voice, as well as some script gremlins I won't bother getting into, it's still an enjoyable movie. I love spaghetti westerns for their style and fresh approach to a genre that had largely grown stale by the time films like these were made. Some of them, like the ones made by Sergio Leone, were exceptional films that stood with (and sometimes above) the best American westerns. Others, like Django, were simply entertaining time-passers with some memorable elements but not much meat on the bone. Nothing wrong with that. This is a good, but not great, spaghetti western that will please die-hard fans of the subgenre but those seeking something more like Leone's work will likely be disappointed.

Django is a mysterious gun-fighting drifter who pulls a coffin behind him when he travels. He arrives at a Mexican border town and immediately rescues a woman called Maria from two sets of bad guys – a group of racist white thugs and a gang of Mexican bandits. He subsequently plays them off against one-and-other but it appears his ultimate motive is revenge…Django proved to be one of the most influential spaghetti westerns ever made. Its plot-line is pretty obviously borrowed from A Fistful of Dollars which had not long before been a big international hit. But it did differ in some ways from Sergio Leone's ground-breaking film. It ramped up the violence for one thing. It was very grisly for its time with scenes such as a man having his ear cut off and then being fed it (Quentin Tarantino paid homage to this in Reservoir Dogs), while it has lots of other bloody violence and a very high body count. Another way in which it was unique was in the sheer amorality and ugliness on display. The town where the action takes place is basically a mud bath, while the other key location is a pit of quick sand. It's a filthy and joyless world that these characters inhabit and it's one that seems to be populated by no actual good characters at all – the prostitutes are probably the most sympathetic beside Django, who is hardly a typical good guy in his underhand Machiavellian ways. Django was certainly a film that really subverted the old morals of the traditional American western more than any other film at the time.It was a role that made Franco Nero too. He was obviously required to effectively do a Clint Eastwood impersonation, which he does well in fairness. Unfortunately he is dubbed with a pretty monotone voice in the English language versions which is a shame. But perhaps even better is Loredana Nusciak who plays Maria. She was very good in this role and looked not unlike a red haired Janet Leigh which is hardly a bad thing. But maybe the man to give most credit to is director Sergio Corbucci. He would go on to make several spaghetti westerns and is often named as the best director of the genre outwith Leone - his later masterpiece The Great Silence is a film that must be seen by anyone who loves westerns in general. In Django he basically ensures that it has an energy and feel. There are little stylistic touches such as the fact that the KKK gang all wear red hoods, which was very striking and there are other classic iconic moments of the absurd that really make the movie memorable such as the coffin and the Gatling gun massacre. And then to top things off we have an amusing title song that unsurprisingly was lifted completely by Mr Homage himself Tarantino for his version Django Unchained. Go back and watch the original I say!

Without the genius of Sergio Leone most spaghetti westerns are usually trash.Django bucks the trend and is a fast paced,action packed addition to the genre.Nero turns in a charismatic performance in the title role though the dubbing leaves a lot to be desired.Not the terrible lip synching which you expect(if not demand)but the performance of the actor delivering Django's lines.He seems merely to be reading off a piece of paper with little attempt to convey drama or emotion.That said the action keeps coming and things are never allowed to drag in the films lean running time.It's violent for sure with an extremely high body count.Lets just say practically everyone who spends any significant time on screen ends up dead-though the cartoonish nature of the violence means the sqeamish wont have too much problem with it.However it's clearly a total rip off of Eastwood's Man With No Name and basically just a good exploitation flick so for that reason it deserves no more than a six out of ten.