As Good As It Gets

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

Boot Hill (La collina degli stivali), directed and written by Giuseppe Colizzi, starring Terence Hill, Woody Strode, Victor Buono, Bud Spencer, Lionel Stander and Eduardo Ciannelli. Music by Carlo Rustichelli and cinematography by Marcello Masciocchi.A Technicolor/Techniscope production! Boot Hill is very much an acquired taste. One man's art canvas is another man's paper mache head, such is the case here with this messy, muddled Spaghetti Western, a pic that has strong fans and haters in equal measure.Personally I hated it, it was 90 minutes of motion sickness and staccato editing, with a musical score veering from plains driving grandeur to acid induced circus shrills. Cast are fine enough, though there's dubbing for dubbing's sake, while an extended over acted barroom brawl at finale is a fun time at least, but really it has to be your thing to enjoy as a whole.A bowl of spaghetti sieved through a kaleidoscopic colander. 1/10

This is a fairly obtuse Western, filmed altogether too dark and muddy that comes complemented by circus trapeze artists, midget clowns and dancing girls. There's also the hint of a homosexual flavor peppered throughout, with two shaggy males dancing cheek to cheek in an opening scene, and glistening male torsos swinging from bar to bar above the big top. It's an odd environment in which Cat Stevens (Terence Hill) recovers from a bullet wound while planning his revenge on an outlaw named Finch and land swindler Honey Fisher, portrayed by Victor Buono.That's about as much as I could glean from my viewing of the film, with the first third of the story a large question mark as to where things were going. It didn't help that a lot of the story seemed to be taking place in the dark, whether by accident or on purpose, with the result about the same, making it difficult to follow. As a result, the final showdown between Stevens and Finch seemed anti-climactic, as did the downfall of Fisher.Maybe a repeat viewing would help, but that's not going to happen.

Misleadingly promoted as a "Trinity" film, "Boot Hill" can barely even be classified as a "Bud Spencer-Terence Hill" film, since it gives the two stars very few chances to exercise their teamwork (Spencer appears after the first half-hour). The story is confusing, and the direction is annoying: for one thing, many action scenes take place in the dark, and for another, the camera focuses a little too closely on the actors; too often half the action appears to have been chopped off the sides of the screen, even though the version I watched was letterboxed. Not recommended. (*1/2)

I bought this movie because it was sold as a set with "Trinity is Still My Name" and was advertised as a sequel to the two Trinity movies. It was actually produced 2 years before "They Call Me Trinity" and the only thing that "Boot Hill" (AKA "Trinity Rides Again") has in common with the other Trinity movies is Terence Hill. "Boot Hill" is long, boring and doesn't hold together. I tried to watch it, but found myself fast-forwarding through it, waiting for something interesting to happen. I wound up throwing "Boot Hill" away.