Director: Giancarlo
Santi
Notable Cast: Lee Van
Cleef, Alberto Dentice, Jess Hahn, Horst Frank, Marc Mazza, Klaus Grunberg,
Antonio Casale, Dominique Darel
When you have a name like Lee Van Cleef attached to a film,
there’s a solid chance that the film will be entertaining. Partner him up in a
spaghetti western and you know you’re going to have a decent time. In a film
like The Grand Duel, which in itself
is a rather mediocre affair, Van Cleef devours the scenery with a nuanced and intense
persona that immediately makes the film watchable, no matter how mundane the
plotting is or how the tone of the film can shift. This is the experience an
audience is going to have with The Grand
Duel. Compared to the many, many other spaghetti westerns that Van Cleef
starred in, this one does certainly falter in quality and engagement with its
audience. Even with its issues, western fans will want to partake in the film
for a handful of reasons and that’s on top of this latest chock-full Blu Ray
release from Arrow Video.
The Grand Duel has
a fantastic first act. The audience is thrown into the middle of a tense stand
off between a hidden criminal, the second lead of the film played by Alberto
Dentice (under the name Peter O’Brien,) and a series of headhunters as a wagon
full of bystanders approach the small area. It just so happens that one of
the people in the wagon is ex-Sheriff Clayton, played with the usual steely
eyes and black-suited regality of Van Cleef, who is also after the runaway
prisoner. The immediate intensity of the standoff, powered by the charming
cockiness of Dentice in conjunction with the all-knowing badassery of Van
Cleef, is a delight to watch. The action is fun and abundant and even when the
opening is done and the two gentlemen are paired up on a trip together to a
small town there is a sense of intimate entertainment that makes the film
intriguing in its mysterious plot and enjoyable in how it’s unraveling the
narrative.
Of course, by the time the second act rolls around it starts
to feel like a tumbleweed blown by the wind through a dusty location in the
film. The Grand Duel starts to lose
its mystery as the plot is revealed to be a rather mundane western blueprint
script and the film muddles its narrative by adding in too many characters and
not enough depth to them. What makes the two semi-heroes so interesting is that
they are played as masks over different people in the beginning. The audience
understands that neither are who they say they are in the performances, but as
the film reveals their true natures that loss of mystery and intrigue is not
replaced by dynamic storytelling or bold character choices (despite what the
black and white flashbacks would indicate.) The film starts to fall into
familiar ruts and director Giancarlo Santi, most notable for being Sergio
Leone’s protégé of sorts, doesn’t quite have the knack to keep the narrative
and tone of the film cohesive as it lays down all of its cards. By the time
that the third act arrives, supposedly featuring the titular ‘grand duel,’ the
film has lost most of its energy and feels as though it's going through the
motions more than anything else.
As expected, this latest Arrow Video Blu Ray release is impressive
as hell. The new 2K restoration is sharp and fantastic looking and for fans of
the spaghetti westerns thee release has enough new interviews and features to
satiate those cravings. Some particularly interesting tidbits on the release
though including a comparison between the original cut and the German cut, a
couple of new video essays, and a science fiction short film from 1984
(starring Marc Mazza.) There are hours of material here to sift through and
watching many of the interviews add some great context to the film.
The Grand Duel
features plenty of things to enjoy for western fans. As mentioned, the opening
act, some strong performances like Horst Frank and the two leads give the film
an edge on being entertaining. Its reliance on some fun set pieces will
interest the more diehards of the spaghetti western fandom. For more casual
fans, the film plays off better as a B-reel film rather than the main attraction
for its over-reliance on tropes and generic villains/political conspiracy plot
points. It struggles through much of the second and third acts to find its
narrative strengths and overly relies on the performances to carry the weight
of the story. The Grand Duel ends up
being a mixed bag. Fortunately, the release itself is beyond fantastic. It’s
brimming with new features and the restoration is pristine. For those fans who
even remotely enjoy the film, this release is worth the addition to the
collection.
ARROW VIDEO FEATURES:
Written By Matt Reifschneider
No comments:
Post a Comment