Sabata (1969)
It shows that this is made by the same director as the first Sartana film, If You Meet Sartana Pray for Your Death. Sabata can be seen as an attempt to make a similar franchise with Lee Van Cleef as the star. It works fairly well in this first movie, but in my opinion it doesn’t quite reach the same levels as Sartana. The very elaborate heist right from the start is well made, Cleef is of course always good and he pulls off his clever tricks to perfection. The plot as usual is ultimately about greed and the difference versions of greed between the villains and our “hero”. Maybe they aren’t so different after all. In addition we get a great varied cast of side characters that in some ways steal the show a bit from Cleef.
Rating: 3.5