For a Few Dollars More continues the journey of The Man with No Name into another western crime adventure! This time, the plotting is much stronger, making better and visual storytelling greater!
Apart from Clint Eastwood as The Man with No Name (TMWNN), the story introduces another main character known as Colonel Douglas Mortimer, played brilliantly by Lee Van Cleef! The introduction of him deliberately stopping the train at Tucumcari and chasing after the bounty at lodge are simply amazing to watch! Said actor has a charm to him despite being intimidating at first. And his onscreen chemistry with Clint Eastwood is everything you’ll pay to watch this movie for!
Yes, when it comes down to it, the dubbing is utterly bad plus some of the performances are outdated - all these issues pertain to the gap between the time period the movie was made and when you actually do watch it. But solid plot and scenes will always stand the test of time, and that's exactly the case with Sergio Leone's For a Few Dollars More!
From the opening scene of a man being shot down his horse as the nag goes back to its routine before stammering away from further gunshots, the writer-director effectively sets the tone, mood and scope of this western epic you're about to witness! With strict 'show, don' tell' principle, you get terrific scenes and sequences such as TMWNN playing poker asking for his bounty's life, revealing the landlady's husband's height, El Indio (Gian Maria Volonté) narrating the carpenter story, the El Paso bank robbery plan and execution, hotel Chink stuck in between bringing the suitcase back to the room or to the train station, hat shoot-offs between Mortimer and TMWNN before agreeing on partnership, smoker ambush on Mortimer with the latter introducing himself as the man who can open safes, TMWNN counting his bounties and completing the calculation by killing the last criminal behind him plus the many, many fantastic standoffs!
Coming back to the point of visual storytelling, you could see how Sergio Leone builds character just by increasing the price of the bounty, informing us on the increased stakes and threat level to our primary characters. He manages to hold our attention with unimaginable tension and suspense building too! His plotting is extremely impactful yet subtle and minimal. Rivalry and confusion within the gang members, not to forget Mortimer's personal connection to Indio being mildly suggested and resolved alongside the path is truly genius stuff! Speaking of genius, Ennio Morricone's score is evergreen!
“Where life has no value, death, sometimes; had its price. That is why the bounty killers appeared.”