Aging gunfighter Harvey Kietel returns to his family after twenty years, to find his wife dead and his only son a pacifist doctor. He's soon followed by degenerate hick David Bowie, who wants his chance to best Kietel and won't take "No" for an answer.The first half of this tender-hearted, politically correct Italian western (the first in awhile) is pretty syrupy, but alright as long as you're not expecting a rip-roaring spaghetti western. Harvey Kietel is as excellent as always and the location photography pretty good.Things get weird in the second half, when a scenery-chewing Bowie and his motley crew arrive to begin a vigil outside Kietel's house. Here he's quite amusing, talking with the same fake southern accent he used for his cameo appearance in Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me and even getting a chance to strum his guitar and sing, that is until he bashes it over the head of another character.I couldn't help but like it.

Not only does "Gunslinger's Revenge" qualify as a pre-Sergio Leone style western from the 1960s when European filmmakers imitated American westerns before Leone reinvented the genre, but it also emerges as a post-Sergio Leone, neo-spaghetti western in an age when only a handful of horse operas are produced. Clearly, the filmmakers didn't want their movie to resemble a traditional spaghetti western and it doesn't look like a typical European oater. Although "Gunslinger's Revenge" was lensed in Italy, the lush, green surroundings where it was photographed look more in keeping with an American western. There aren't any truly ugly-looking gunmen visible as there would be in a Leone sagebrusher. "Suddenly Paradise" director Giovanni Versonesi and actor/scenarist Leonardo Piersaccioni freely adapted Vincenzo Pardini's novel Jodo Cartamigli for "Gunslinger's Revenge." Since I haven't read the novel, I have no way of verifying whether Versonesi or Piersaccioni remained faithful to the source material. Okay, you can tell that they dubbed some of the actors, simply because their dialogue is far too loud and far too clear. None of the sets had that rickety, about-to-collapse appearance that you'll liable to see in a genuine 1960s/1970s Italian dustraiser. On the whole, despite the oddball casting, Versonesi has fashioned an interesting, above-average western with a surprise ending. "Gunslinger's Revenge" is all about the theme of family. Its' live-by-the-gun or die-by-the-gun theme is the standard stuff of 1950s American westerns."Gunslinger's Revenge" opens with the words: "The West is where every child played cowboys and Indians." Indeed, "Gunslinger's Revenge" is a western more in the tradition of "Shane." Like the novel "Shane," "Gunslinger's Revenge" is told from the perspective of a young, cheerful, half-breed, elementary school age boy named Jeremiah (Yudii Mercredi) who would rather play hooky from school than suffer indoors at the mercy of a stern schoolmarm. Notorious gunslinger John Lowen (Harvey Keitel of "Pulp Fiction") returns to his home town of Basin Fields after a lifetime of wandering to hang up his six-shooter. He wants to renew his family ties with his son, Doc Lowen (Leonardo Piersaccioni of "The Prince and the Pirate"), who has never carried a gun but has acquired a reputation for settling fights between the townspeople. Furthermore, he isn't a trained doctor but more of an herbalist. John Lowen discovers that his son has married an Indian squaw and his success at doctoring the locals has allowed his wife and him to live a normal life without prejudice. Initially, Doc isn't overjoyed to see his long lost papa; he doesn't like it that John abandoned his mother and him in his youth to wander in search of adventure. Nevertheless, Doc and his wife Pearl (Sandrine Holt of "Starship Troopers 2") allow him to stay with them in the same house that he grew up in as a youth. John Lowen has such a reputation that a detachment of cavalry shows up in town to observe his behavior. John convinces the captain that he has come back home, never to leave again.A psychopathic gunslinger, Jack Sikora and his multi-culturally diverse gang of pistoleros show up in Basin Fields after the cavalry leave. Sikora has come to kill John. The unusual casting of British rock star David Bowie as Sikora is hard to swallow at first, but Bowie is appropriately homicidal as Sikora and he is prepared to kill anybody—man or woman—without a qualm that poses a threat to him. Sikora's gang consists of a white guy, a black guy, and a woman in leather with a six-gun. The girl is in charge of shooting photographs of Sikora. John had buried his shell belt and six-shooter in the graveyard to keep his son happy, but the happiness doesn't last long once Sikora and his gang arrive to terrorize the town. A crazy man named Joshua (Jim van der Woude who looks like long-time Hollywood supporting actor Hank Worden) live with Doc, Pearl, and Jeremiah. Joshua is a rather unorthodox character, and John teaches Joshua about handling firearms in close-quarters combat. Predictably, Sikora tries to prod John into a gunfight, but John will have nothing to do with Sikora.There is a good scene early in the action after John Lowen comes to town. He is unarmed when he faces down a gunman in the saloon. He scares the villain off when he assures his opponent that he can draw somebody else's gun and shoot him quicker than his opponent can clear leather. Lowen's advice about how to win in a shoot-out is unlike anything you've ever seen in a western, too. Lowen demonstrates his singular technique, explaining that you move to the other side of your opponent's gun hand. Meaning, if your opponent is a right-handed shooter, you jump to the right and shoot because he won't move in the opposite direction."Gunslinger's Revenge" is actually pretty good for a foreign western.

Several of the comments here show negative response to what I feel is really a kind of tribute film to the great Sergio Leone. This film could easily have been Parmesan cheese atop the fabulous westerns Leone and Clint Eastwood created, but I think it keeps a good blend with the genre. Yes, the main character, Doc, is speaking in Italian and English is dubbed in. But that's a big part of the charm of all "foreign" films, especially the spaghetti westerns. And having spent my childhood in Oklahoma, I thought Bowie's psychotic bad man accent was surprisingly good (although I think Dwight Yoakam would have made a better casting choice). The soundtrack, likewise, could have come off as a pale substitute for Morricone's memorable scores. I thought the choice of the Marley's reggaeesque tune was more than suitable, especially since one of the "bad guy" characters was Rastafarian - one of many colorful additions that, in my view, bring nice flavors to the genre.My only complaint after seeing the film once is that it's too short. If it were expanded to include more about Keitel's character and his earlier relationship with Bowie's, the climactic scene could have carried more punch - maybe not along the lines of the Bronson/Fonda gunfight in Once Upon a Time in the West, but richer character development would definitely have added more suspense and contributed to bringing a well-worn genre into the 21st century.I don't think anyone who is a true fan of spaghetti westerns would be disappointed in spending 95 minutes with a tastefully created, colorful, quirky film like this.

Lousy excuse for a western. The protagonist is hard to like at all, and his Grandfather, Harvey Keitel as Johhny Lowden, is misused and colorless. The worst part of the whole script is how a tribe of Native Americans sit at their village and wait for the village news carrier come and tell everyone of the arrival of Johnny Lowden and then David Bowie's character (one of the worst characters I've ever seen). The village never does anything but be a sounding board and then parties after the bad guy is dead, and one must wonder why the hell do they care? When the town elder foretells the future of the two meeting, it's laughable. Guess why they call it a comedy. The town loon is a poorly developed character who looses a chance to be of much value except at the end. Even Harvey Keitel finds it hard to fake laughter at the conclusion.The western genre is not dead, but this poor excuse for a story should have been a "pass" and never green-lighted.