(Review originally written at 12 November 2007)
This is a typical Sergio Leone western, with a style that made the spaghetti western one of THE genres of the '60's and redefined the western genre in general. "Per qualche dollaro in più" is the middle movie of the 'Dollar'-trilogy and although its not the best out of the trilogy it's of course still better than just your average kind of western!
It's a movie that's solidly written, with also some fine solid characters in it. But it of course is the directing and story-telling style of Sergio Leone that makes the movie work out so well. He takes his time to build up sequences and its excitement. This movie is really not halve as action filled as you perhaps would expect but it still is at least halve more exciting than most other westerns with lots of action in it. This says something about the effective directing approach of Leone. Of course his trademarks elements such as extreme close-ups of eyes, flashbacks, slow storytelling, gritty atmosphere and stand-offs are all present here.
Lee Van Cleef plays one of his very best roles. Gian Maria Volontè also did a really good job at playing the movie its real main villain, although of course I still prefer Eli Wallach. And Clint Eastwood does what he can do best in this movie; playing one tough but righteous character. It was also quite nice to see Klaus Kinski in this one!
And of course you can't get around Ennio Morricone's musical score. Wasn't he one of the first ever composes to give each character a main theme and motive throughout the movie, that gets featured prominently? His score for this movie is just great and it above all really serves a purpose within the movie, which makes the score really suit the movie its story as well as the overall atmosphere.
It's a movie that just gets better and better toward the ending, until it gets to its unavoidable stand-off sequence at the end, that is really exciting and memorable, once again not in the least thanks to Morricone's musical score, that actually plays a real important part during the sequence.
In my opinion this movie gets nowhere close to the brilliance of "Il Buono, il brutto, il cattivo", which is the 'follow-up' of this movie and the last part of the trilogy, but that of course doesn't mean that this movie is a bad one! Not at all!
8/10
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