Best movie of this year hands down!

best movie i've ever seen.

Absolutely the worst movie.

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

100 Rifles (1969) ** (out of 4)Yaqui Joe Herrera (Burt Reynolds) robs an Arizona bank and heads into Mexico where he's eventually caught by Sheriff Lyedecker (Jim Brown). Soon the sheriff realizes that the young half Indian stole the money so that he could buy his people some weapons in order to fight. Soon Lyedecker joins forces with the group and strikes up a relationship with Sarita (Raquel Welch).100 RIFLES is a rather interesting film to watch, although it's not nearly as good as one would have hoped. This film certainly has a very European feel to it yet it's pretty much missing all of the ingredients of the Spaghetti Westerns that were so popular at the time. I'm not sure why the director went away from delivering a type of film that was so popular during this era but either way we've got a very good cast that helps make up for it.The cast are certainly the reason to watch the film even though I'd argue that no one really gives what you'd consider a "good" performance. Both Brown and Reynolds were still rather young in their careers so we can overlook that they're not strong dramatic actors. With that said, both of them certainly had a presence about them and they manage to help keep the film moving and slightly entertaining. Welch is basically here to show off her sexuality, which she does a great job at. The director constantly likes to hint at her sexuality and this is especially true early on when she goes to take her shirt off and just as you think you're about to see something... We've also got a young and beautiful Soledad Miranda in a small part.The biggest problem with 100 RIFLES is the fact that it runs on way too long and there's just really not much of a story to carry the extended running time. I really do wish the film had been edited down further because there are some great scenes scattered throughout. The highlight would have to be a battle sequence where the bad guys are on a train and the good guys do a surprise attack. This scene here is certainly worth sitting through the movie for.

In her heyday, the 1960's, I don't think any actress was hotter than Raquel Welch in the looks department. Unfortunately, that didn't translate into meaningful movie roles, perhaps because her physical assets outshone her acting ability. Just surmising on that point mind you, since I haven't seen a lot of her pictures. Here she seems effective as the strong willed Yaqui woman who comes to the aid of her people following the hanging death of her father in an opening scene. Fellow Yaqui, Joe Herrera (Burt Reynolds) is being pursued by ex-footballer Jim Brown, who's character Lyedecker is after a two hundred dollar reward and a permanent job for capturing the Indian bandit.I couldn't help feeling that the almost two hour film could have been done in half the time like a 'B' programmer from the 1950's. Then of course, you wouldn't have needed the three principal stars to tell the story, or the strong supporting cast headed by Fernando Lamas as the bloodthirsty Mexican General Verdugo. Not knowing him by his real name, Eric Braeden, I would have sworn Hans Gudegast turned up for his role straight off the set of "Rat Patrol" - I'll have to go back to some of those episodes to see if there's a uniform change. He's a very similar character here, but certainly second string to Lamas.I'll have to admit I was a little impatient for things to get going here, once they do there are a few interesting moments. There's a real tough looking descent down a cliff side on horseback by both the Indians and the Mexican rurales. The love scene between Brown and Welch had me wondering if this might have been the first time an inter-racial match up was attempted in film, if so, it was a ground breaking move, even if tame by today's standards. Still, it was a moment to be noted for the late 1960's. For Raquel Welch, the show stopper was the train stopper, if you know what I mean.

The movie takes place during a bloody time period of Mexico history… At that time, anyone coming to Mexico ought to be speaking Spanish… But Lyedecker (Jim Brown) didn't speak the language… He was a black policeman looking for a valuable man, a bank robber named Joe Herrera (Burt Reynolds), who looks Mexican but doesn't talk Mexican… Herrera is a half-breed, whose mother was a Yaqui Indian and his father was from Alabama… General Verdugo (Fernando Lamas) is sure that the money was not spent on women or on Whisky… For him, Joe stole the $6,000 from the Citizen's Bank in Phoenix, Arizona to buy 100 rifles for his people, the Yaqui Indians…Verdugo—a murderer and an assassin who runs the State of Sonora—have orders to get rid of the Yaquis any way he could, and he took the easy way by killing everybody… He even kidnapped Yaqui children to regain the rifles… And now he wants Lyedecker's head on a stick in the middle of the plaza for everyone to see…Lyedecker doesn't care about nothing and nobody… He took a job that nobody else wanted… His intentions are to take Joe back for the $200 reward and a permanent job… The policeman rejected any deal in spite of all the atrocities he witnessed like executing Indians or hanging them up like a side of beef… Steven Grimes (Dan O'Herlihy)—who runs the railroad— doesn't want his train to be a small sacrifice to the mean general… The German military adviser Lt. Von Klemme (Eric Braeden) thinks that the Indians must be finished off as quickly as possible before more guns come through… Raquel Welch's most audacious moment comes out when the Indians attack a well-guarded train carrying troops and supplies, and she was openly showering in the flat part, under a water tower…With a very nice score by Jerry Goldsmith, "100 Rifles" is a slam-bang action epic, with loads of explosions and gory fighting, making little sense but a lot of amusing noise

Sheriff Lyedecker (Jim Brown) comes to Mexiko as he chases the bank robber Yaqui Joe (Burt Reynolds). As a victim of circumstance, Lyedecker becomes the number 1 enemy of a Mexican general who wants to kill the Yaqui Indians. The sheriff has no other choice than to fight side by side with the bank robber and the Indians now...The years 1969-1971 mark the beginning of the modern western with the irony of „Little Big Man", the cruelty of „Soldier Blue", the myth awareness of „Butch Cassidy And the Sundance Kid", the depression of „McCabe & Mrs Miller" and many more. „100 Rifles" is a kind of missing link between 1960s westerns and the new approach as from 1970 onwards. It makes deliberate, obvious attempts to break taboos, telling the love story between a black guy and a white woman, pushes violence to the level of an Italian western of that time, includes nudity not only in Raquel Welch's famous shower scene, but also in Soledad Miranda's hotel scene at the beginning, and the screenplay adds a left-wing political, anti-racist theme. „100 Rifles" gets carried away by its own enthusiasm sometimes, putting forward its messages a bit clumsily compared to the elegance of „The Professionals", a movie which took much more careful steps into the revolution movie direction 2 years earlier. Nevertheless, I enjoyed watching the picture for being a (wild) child of its time, speedy narration and a gorgeous Raquel Welch.