Spaghetti Westerns: Face to Face (1967) - Reviewed

Courtesy of Kino Lorber

 

In the pantheon of spaghetti western filmmakers such as Sergio Leone, Sergio Corbucci, Lucio Fulci and Duccio Tessari, one director who doesn’t get enough attention and should for introducing what became known as the zapata western is Sergio Sollima.  Characterized by the pairing of a Mexican bandit with a money grubbing American from the US frontier, the zapata western was a short lived but unique variant of the spaghetti western buddy hero film of sorts. 
 
Comprised as a loose trilogy all starring Tomas Milian, the first chapter known as The Big Gundown from 1966 starred Milian as Cuchillo, a Mexican bandit accused of a crime he didn’t commit.  Two years later Sollima and Milian would revisit the character of Cuchillo once more with Run, Man, Run, but not before embarking on a one-off with the Italian/Spanish Zapata western Face to Face.
 
At the height of the Civil War, Brad Fletcher (Gian Maria Volonté) is a fresh retiree from his tenure as a History Professor making an early exit due to tuberculosis.  A withdrawn, sensitive, overly polite individual with no love life and no violent dealings, his brief siesta is interrupted by the arrival of a stagecoach housing several lawmen and a captured outlaw named Solomon “Beauregard” Bennett (Tomas Milian).  Perturbed by their rough treatment of Bennett, Fletcher intervenes to give him some water only to be taken hostage by the man. 

Courtesy of Kino Lorber

 
While captive and dragged across the open desert after crashing the stagecoach, the two retreat into a nearby forest where Bennett begins coaching Fletcher in the ways of the gun.  As Fletcher’s skills set with the revolver grows, a curious trading of places occurs with Fletcher’s newfound power kicks into high gear and he all but abandons his morals and social principles in favor of embracing his inner id.
 
Curious for how it depicts two disparate characters on opposite sides of the sociopolitical fence gradually switching sides as the law of the land begins to reshape Fletcher’s outlook on the world and using his intellect to outwit other criminals on the barren terrain of the old west.  Moreover, over the course of the movie we’re watching an upstanding citizen slowly turn sociopathic and even Machiavellian while the film’s “adversary” starts to happen upon his own redemption arc.

Courtesy of Kino Lorber

 
Produced by the legendary Alberto Grimaldi, the film sports splendid panoramic widescreen cinematography courtesy of Rafael Pacheco and what is undeniably a pulsating score by spaghetti western legend Ennio Morricone, Face to Face is one of the more fascinating and politically charged Zapata westerns that presents a nihilistic worldview while.  Moreover, the film is a critique of the then-resurgence of European fascism with a moral gray area neither good nor evil at the epicenter. 
 
The real strength of the film rests on the two leads with Gian Maria Volonté starting out as a victim before gradually coming into his own as a new kind of victimizer and the grotesque looking Milian starting out as an intimidating villain who comes to find out he’s spawned an even worse monster than himself that must be vanquished before more deaths occur.  Though the film is an ensemble piece with many characters, it clearly belongs to the main stars of the film and concerns how circumstances can transform a good man into a criminal.

Courtesy of Kino Lorber

 
A box office smash in Europe along with effusive critical praise, Face to Face unfortunately got released in the United States in a truncated cut with the original Italian cut available in select European markets.  A shame because the complete film is unquestionably one of the greatest spaghetti/Zapata western films you’ve never heard of.  Moreover, it cements Sollima as one of the great overlooked Italian western directors with a unique blend of social commentary as well as serving up old fashioned spaghetti western action thrills.  Most certainly one of the best spaghetti/Zapata westerns and one of the best character studies of the late 1960s.

--Andrew Kotwicki