One of the pioneers of cinema, Sergio Leone's directorial venture' The Good The Bad The Ugly 'urged me to gain high amount of cinematic fanaticism by watching one of his most critically lauded ' Once Upon A Time in The West'. The film gets succesfully enlisted among one of the most terrific performances ever by the ensemble cast.
The movie opens up with a deadly gun duel between a harmonica playing bloke (Charles Bronson) and three men dressed in a cowboy outfit. Bronson plays the enigmatic nameless person (called 'Harmonica' in the film because of his ability to play harmonica in an eerie fashion even when things appear to look serious ) being the only good guy in the film. He helms the task of protecting Brett McBain's widow Jill McBain against Frank and his fellow gangsters after the villains mercilessly massacre McBain and his children. Joining Harmonica in his mission to kill Frank is Cheyenne , the bearded bandit who is falsely framed by Frank in murder of Brett McBain. Thus, Harmonica along with the ruffian Cheyenne set out to bring down the most dreaded assassin Frank. However retribution remains their sole purpose.
The film is slow-paced and the viewer is clueless about the real reason behind McBain's murder even after the half time of the movie has passed. There are bloodless fights, revenge, intimate scenes, land rights, shootouts, trains and you are only required to eat what Leone gives you, simply without questioning the plot. Things perfectly fall in place in the latter half of the movie as you get to know that Leone exhibits complete veracity while directing the Western drama. The action scenes are carefully designed and they can surely put the modern day jumbled action to utter shame. The film was bankrolled with plenty of money as it had elaborate sets, brilliant casting and fantastically executed duels.
One of the most amazing western dramas I have ever seen, Once Upon A Time In The West is as distilled, refined and clear as it appears to be.
9 on 10 stars
