Adiós, Sabata (1971)

Best movie of this year hands down!

Best movie ever!

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

The second Sabata film mixes the Mexican Revolution plot with the stolen Gold plot and manages to make it work through an avalanche of stupid characters and the fact that instead of the usual bounty hunters and bandits the bad guys are a bunch of arrogant Austrians up for a killing. One of them even says 'I'll be back!' Yul Bryner plays Sabata this time round, a bounty killer with a good heart and no concept of money. The money he makes from shoot outs goes to the local monastery (they don't approve!), so when he's roped into killing one of the local Austrian senior officers he's all for it, until he realises that this is your usual double crossing gold stealing plot.All is not lost. Even though this plot is played out like some Western frontier mine, we still get a few quirks to keep our attention, like Sal Borgese's mute bandit character. He doesn't say much, but he has two musket balls that he drops into special pockets in his shoes that he then fires at people's heads. He also has a friend who dances while the head bandit guy prepares to kill someone.There's also an insanely high body count even for a film like this, where most of Mexico is killed in a barrage of dynamite and bullets, and of course there's the tenuous relationship between Yul and the other good guy that results in gold swapping hands various times which leads to an ending which drags on slightly for those who have witnessed it several times by this point.

I saw this Yul Brynner-starring spaghetti western under the title ADIOS SABATA, even though it has nothing to do with the two Lee Van Cleef-starring SABATA films. It's not as good as the first Van Cleef film but better than the second. The coolest thing about this movie is seeing Yul Brynner in a wicked '70s set up complete with black costume, open shirt, and the like. Brynner's name is Indio Black in the original, Sabata in the version attempting to tie it in to the Van Cleef series.Once again the plot centres around a gold shipment and efforts by rival parties to get their hands on it. Brynner sort of moves in and out of the story and takes care of a bunch of soldiers and henchmen along the way. The Mexican revolutionaries are posited as the 'good' characters in this film; perhaps the Italians identified with them better given that this was shot in Spain. Care is taken to make the main bad guy an Austrian rather than American. The film is well shot and written, and proves an entertaining example of the spaghetti western genre.

Hands down the best movie of the Sabata Trilogy. I saw all the movies in the Sabata Box DVD Trilogy set and Adios Sabata (Indio Black) was not even meant to be a third Sabata film but Lee Van Cleef was unavailable for this third Sabata film being on the Magnificent Seven Ride! So ironically the great actor from the original Magnificent Seven, Yul Brynner was cast!! Don't get me wrong Lee Van Cleef is marvelous as Sabata in the first two Sabata films, but Brynner is just better as Sabata in this last Sabata film. If you can get past some sloppy film production typical of Spaghetti Westerns (bad voice-over dubs, Italian actors playing Mexican characters, fake overacted gunshot deaths sometimes without even blood...etc) then you will be rewarded with a stylish, tongue-in-cheeky western that rivals the best Spaghetti Westerns ever made!!This Spaghetti Western has such a talented all-star cast, starting with the great thespian actor Yul Brynner who's gypsy style and charm bring depth to the character. And the musician Dean Reed who plays the slick yet tricky sidekick. The music from the great Italian composer Bruno Nicoli in this film rivals that of the maestro of film music, Ennio Morricone. The film music in Adios Sabata just ROCKS. Even the wardrobe is beautiful. This film was produced by Alberto Grimaldi who produced all the major Spaghetti Western including Sergio Leone's Dollar Trilogy. Even Quentin Tarantino has highly regarded this film and selected this film once for his film fest.Overall a slick Spaghetti Western complete with original electric guitar rock music, awesome gun-play / weapon gadgets, double/triple crosses, stylish wardrobe/props that make this movie a classic in the Spaghetti Western genre!!

Long before the Terminator, Sabata (this time Yul Brynner in his only spaghetti western) uttered the infamous words, "I'll be back." This is the second of Gianfranco Parolini's Sabata trilogy, but it is not a sequel, as the characters and story are different. Like the first, it is also written by Renato Izzo, who went on to write the video nasty Night Train Murders after finishing the trilogy.Brynner had the cool look that probably got him the Westworld gig a few years later.Ignazio Spalla is back from the fist film, but with a different name (Escudo). Maybe he changed it to hide.Sabata joins Escudo and revolutionaries trying to overthrow Austrian Archduke Maximillion, who ruled over Mexico as an imperial dictator; of course, Sabata was only after gold. Others were as well, so it was not a walk in the park.It is fortunate that the Archduke had plenty of soldiers to sacrifice to the cause.Well, Lee Van Cleef, Ignazio Spalla, and Aldo Canti will be back in the final Sabata film.