As rich a spaghetti western as you're likely to find. During the Mexican Revolution, American Lou Castel gets caught up with arms dealer Gian Maria Volonté and his band of thieving misfits. They're stealing guns to sell to rebel General Jaime Fernández. Their long journey to find Fernández is peppered with a lot of bloodshed and even some soapy drama (Castel runs afoul of hot-headed Guy Heron & his strong willed girlfriend Martine Beswick). Volonté is outstanding, at first expanding upon his ruthless role in FOR A FEW DOLLARS MORE. He turns out to be one of the most conscientiousness bandits in movie western history. Director Damiano Damiani infuses the film with quite a few political statements about guilt & innocence and haves and have nots. He's abetted greatly by Franco Solinas, who adapted Salvatore Laurani's story. The excellent music score is by Luis Bacalov. Klaus Kinski, second billed as Volonté's holy rolling brother, has a relatively small role.

Damiano Damiani's 1966 film 'A Bullet for the General' is one of the first examples of the Zapata Western, a sub-genre of the Spaghetti Western that mostly dealt with political themes during the Mexican Revolution of the early 20th century. Gian Maria Volontè plays El Chucho, the leader of a Mexican bandit gang who earn their pay selling arms to revolutionaries - he meets with a suave gringo named Bill Tate (played by Lou Castel) who claims to be on the run from the law and soon finds himself inducted into the group and deep in the heart of the Mexican revolution.Despite the simple sounding premise 'A Bullet for the General' displays a great depth of character as the protagonists relationships shift with the plot before inevitably exchanging roles. The first hour or so seems like a standard western affair with lots of the usual train hi-jacks and bandit raids, but as the characters develop and their relationships become more strained we see some marvellous performances from the suspicious El Chucho, his brother El Santo (a fanatical Christian revolutionary played by Klaus Kinski) and the cool and un-flustered Bill 'Niño' Tate.The doubt displayed by El Chucho towards Tate really sets up the finale, and as the film nears the heart of the revolution Tate's motives become clear - but that doesn't stop Damiani pulling a nice twist at the end, endearing Volontè's character and providing a juxtaposition to the characters he made famous in some of Sergio Leone's classic Spaghetti Westerns. In a film dealing largely with role-reversal this is particularly apt.I didn't quite know what to expect from 'A Bullet for the General', I hadn't previously heard of the director and apparently this was his first foray into the Western genre - but I was pleasantly surprised with the outcome. Providing a good mix of action and politics with commendable performances from Volontè, Kinski and Castel 'A Bullet for the General' is an intriguing and unique example of the Spaghetti Western and well worth your time whether you're a fan of the genre or not.

Wham-bam spaghetti Western set during the Mexican civil war. A morally ambiguous gun-runner finds assistance from a mysterious American, who is rather too keen to get the cache and one particular bullet to the rebel general. Gian Maria Volonte is astounding as the outlaw, torn between commitment to the cause of the peasants and his own immense appetites; Kinski is his barmy apocalyptic preacher of a brother. Lou Cassel is properly cold as the internally dead gringo American.The narrative leaps forwards in great bounds, with each sequence establishing it's progression from the next with punchy visual clarity, and there's a plenty of memorable encounters and images along the way. The radical and committed script is by Pontecorvo-collaborator Franco Solinas, and the portrait of the morally decrepit white man bears a lot of similarity with Brando's character in Burn! The final sequence, with Volonte realising just how much of his soul he has sold, is one of the greatest denouements around.

Damiano Damiani's masterpiece "El Chuncho Quién Sabe?" aka. "A Bullet For The General" of 1967 is a very political Spaghetti Western set in the Mexican Revolution. A quite brutal tale about ideals, greed, friendship and selfishness, is not only a very entertaining Spaghetti Western, but also a unique study of an idealistic man's struggle between his greed and desire for wealth on the one hand, and his beliefs and ideals on the other hand.El Chuncho (Gian Maria Volontè) is a bandit and revolutionary with a strong fondness for women, alcohol and cigars. Along with his slightly insane, but religious and very idealistic brother El Santo (Klaus Kinski), he leads a gang of bandits with beliefs, who help the poor and rob the government's army to sell the weapons to the revolutionary army. When the gang is joined by Bill Tate, an American who, due to his youth, is just referred to as "El Nino" by El Chuncho and his fellow Mexican bandidos, the gang leader starts to befriend with the gringo. El Nino, however is basically almost the opposite of El Chuncho, he doesn't drink, he doesn't smoke and he doesn't waste his time with women, and neither does he believe in any causes or ideals, the only thing he is interested in is quick and good money. His friendship to the baby-faced but selfish and cold-blooded Nino, becomes a breaking test for Chuncho, who is torn between his greed and his ideals.Although Sergio Leone and Sergio Corbucci are two of my favorite directors of all-time, and their movies "Giù La Testa" ("Duck You Sucker", Leone) and "Il Mercenario" ("The Mercenary", Corbucci), are two awesome movies, and furthermore there are quite a few more excellent Mexican Revolution Spaghetti Westerns , I would name "A Bullet for the General" as my favorite of the Mexican-Revolution-themed Spaghetti Westerns. The acting in this movie is superb. Gian Maria Volontè played in four Spaghetti Westerns and each one of them is a masterpiece. After his excellent performances in "A Fistful Of Dollars", "For A Few Dollars More" and Sergio Sollima's "Faccia A Faccia"/"Face To Face", Volontè is superb as El Chuncho, the most lovable Spaghetti Western character he played. Klaus Kinski is great as always, the character of the rather crazy but idealistic El Santo is quite unusual, since Kinski's roles in Italian Westerns were, with a few exceptions, normally those of extremely cold blooded and selfish killers, who didn't think of anybody but themselves. Lou Castel perfectly fits into the role of baby-faced El Nino, and he manages to point out his character's cleverness and selfishness in a very good way. The directing by Damiano Damiani is brilliant and so is the cinematography. I would have rated this 10/10 if it wasn't for he one minor flaw: The score by Ennio Morricone and Louis Bavalov is good, but it is no quite as great as it could have been as it can't compete with the brilliance of other Morricone scores. Nevertheless, an excellent film! A brutal, witty and very political Spaghetti Western, "A Bullet For The General" is an excellent film that genre-fans, and film buffs in general should not miss!