God's Gun_720P_480P

God's Gun_720P

source: God's Gun

Diamante Lobo

Steely-eyed clergyman Lee Van Cleef (as as Father John) lords over the peaceful, law-abiding and Christian town of "Juno City" with open-shirted boy pal Leif Garrett (as Johnny) as his sidekick. The respectable town gets roughed-up when smirking Jack Palance (as Sam Clayton) and his gang of cutthroats stop by for some booze and broads. Handsome brother Robert Lipton (as Jess Clayton) starts a chain reaction of big trouble. Young Garrett takes care of business by very quietly finding Mr. Van Cleef's twin brother in Mexico, to help settle the score. A startling secret involving beautifully-figured Sybil Danning (as Jenny) thickens the plot. "God's Gun" is a misfire, but does have an attractive cast and bawdy quality. **** God's Gun (3/7/75) Gianfranco Parolini ~ Lee Van Cleef, Leif Garrett, Jack Palance, Robert Lipton

(aka: GOD'S GUN) Terrible. Absolutely, terrible... Lee Van Cleef plays the dual role of a town priest (badly dubbed by someone else) who's killed by Jack Palance's gang, and his bounty hunter brother who comes after Palance for killing his brother. You'd think that a film with three heavyweights like Lee Van Cleef, Jack Palance and Richard Boone couldn't go wrong, right? Guess again... These guys don't even dub their own voices in. The dubbed voices sound like a bunch of kids 20 or 30 years younger than the actors themselves. If you can believe it. Geez... Plus, the whole thing looks like it was filmed in one of those tourist western towns and the extras were hired merely to take up space. The acting is atrocious, the script is awful and the gunplay looks like a bunch of kids playing with cap pistols. A Golan-Globus production filmed in Israel, this has all the appeal of a stale matzo ball. For the truly hard-up. 1 out of 10

Actually, this is just a comment. I did not find the movie as bad as ejhutchez, but I did enjoy it. (I am a westerns freak, so that may have had something to do with it). Make no mistake, it is no classic- but it is watchable. Anyways, the point I wanted to make is that the three American stars, all of whom- particularly Jack Palance- have trade mark voices and ways of talking were all poorly dubbed by what seem (or rather sound) to be Italian actors. That just strikes me as really weird. I do agree that the dual roles played by Van Cleef were the best part of the movie by far and that Boone and Palance did indeed seem to be walking through their parts. Still, it's better than a Tom Cruise movie.

I don't suppose many Westerns were made in Israel, but this seems to be the most famous. It looks like they've gone for the 'Spaghetti Western' look rather than the conventional and so should appeal to those who like those movies. Well....if they can get past the terrible direction, wonky camera-work, and Leif Garrett's acting. Van Cleef plays a preacher(looking like Satan) who is gunned down in cold blood by Palance's vicious gang. Garrett, who witnesses the event is struck dumb and heads off to Mexico to find Van Cleef's twin brother, a top gunman who vowed to his brother he would never kill with a gun again. Van Cleef heads back to avenge his brother's death, but tries to do so in a manner that doesn't involve shooting them all. There's clearly a good Western here, but it's lost beneath the ineptitude of the film makers. That said, Van Cleef's twin performance is excellent, and Palance hams(pun not intended) it up like only he can. 5/10

The votes seem rather low for this; my guess is that those voting aren't familiar with (or fans of) westerns from the 1960's / 1970's. As they go, this one isn't bad at all. Lee Van Cleef was excellent; Leif Garrett went from underplaying to overplaying in some scenes, but that was probably what the director was wanting. Jack Palance was the surprise to me; he is usually the epitome of a villain. Here, I thought that the menace was a bit overdone to the point of being lost. My vote was 5, could have been better, but is quite watchable.