Duck, You Sucker (A.K.A. A Fistful of Dynamite) ****1/2

Duck, You Sucker is Sergio Leone's follow-up to the epic Once Upon a Time in the West (and is considered the second act of a trilogy that ends with Once Upon A Time In America). Rod Steiger plays the patriarch of a Mexican peasant-bandit family during the Mexican Revolution. He stumbles on an explosives expert played by James Coburn, who is a former IRA revolutionary. Steiger quickly becomes a reluctant hero of the revolution while Coburn has deja vu over the revolution he finds himself in the middle of now and the revolution he left in Ireland.

This Leone film is full of commentary that hasn't been seen from the director before, particular Steiger's lines about the bookworms polishing tables while the peasants die in a revolution. Leone's direction is pure Leone with its intensity and use of spaces. Overall the cast is great. though Coburn's Irish brogue fades in and out throughout the film. The only low point of the film, which I was surprised about, was Ennio Morricone's score. It's interesting at the beginning, but about halfway through the picture becomes a rehash of the Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid score. Morricone seems to have phones in this one.

Duck, You Sucker is Leone's forgotten film, suffering from the butchering the same way as both Once Upon A Time... films did before and after it. The restored version of Leone's vision shows that he was on top of his game and makes one wonder what more he could have given us with the proper backing.