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MVD

MOVIE INFO

Director:
Julio Buchs
Cast:
Ernest Borgnine, George Hilton, Albeto De Mendoza
Writing Credits:
Julio Buchs, Federico De Urrutia, José Luis Martínez Mollá

Synopsis:
A Confederate deserter whose Mexican girlfriend dies during childbirth starts a feud with her Mexican family, becomes an outlaw and vows revenge on all who wronged him.

MPAA:
Rated NR.

DISC DETAILS
Presentation:
Aspect Ratio: 2.35:1
Audio:
English LPCM Monaural
Spanish LPCM Monaural
Subtitles:
English
Closed-captioned
Supplements Subtitles:
None

Runtime: 101 min.
Price: $29.95
Release Date: 11/7/2023

Bonus:
• Original Spanish Open
• Audio Commentary with Filmmaker Alex Cox
• Trailer


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RELATED REVIEWS


A Bullet for Sandoval [Blu-Ray] (1970)

Reviewed by Colin Jacobson (November 5, 2023)

I don’t know when the glory days of the Spaghetti Western ended. However, the genre remained alive for 1970’s A Bullet For Sandoval.

Set during the Civil War, Confederate soldier Corporal John Warner (George Hilton) receives a message that his girlfriend Rosa (Annabella Incontrera) gave birth to their son. Childbirth leaves Rosa near death, so John deserts to see her.

John ends up captured along the way but he escapes with the help of some friends. However, Rosa dies before he reaches her.

Left as a single father, John encounters resistance from Rosa’s father Don Pedro Sandoval (Ernest Borgnine). This leads to tragedy and John’s quest for vengeance against his baby granddad.

That all sounds pretty exciting, but unfortunately, Bullet doesn’t find much to do with its themes or characters. Despite the way the plot synopsis implies a strong “quest for retribution”, the end result meanders an awful lot.

Granted, some of this seems inevitable, as stories like this tend to enjoy their own minor digressions. A story that just showed one character as he chases revenge without any side intrigue would become monotonous.

Nonetheless, Bullet can seem to lose track of its main goal too much of the time. It tends to lollygag, so we find ourselves without a lot of tension.

It doesn’t help that the entire plot feels contrived. Warner acts foolishly and the story can feel like it creates conflict just for the sake of conflict, not because any of it makes sense.

For instance, it never appears all that clear why Sandoval hates Warner so much. I guess we get an implication Sandoval believes Warner woos his daughter just for money, but the film fails to spell this out especially well.

Does it seem realistic that Sandoval would attempt to banish the memory of his dead daughter and also send his infant grandson out into the world with a dude he loathes?

No – this seems utterly illogical, but I guess the screenwriters couldn’t think of a better way to create the animosity between Sandoval and Warner. It seems to me a bunch of superior plot concepts could’ve been utilized, but we get stuck with this flawed narrative theme.

Hilton provides an utterly anonymous and charisma-free lead. As much as we should sympathize with him, Hilton’s dull performance makes it tough to care – and the script’s erratic development of the role doesn’t help.

Borgnine adds professionalism to the tale, and some moments spark to life acceptably. However, too much of Bullet feels like filler, and the end result fails to connect frequently enough to make it a good film.


The Disc Grades: Picture C+/ Audio D+/ Bonus C

A Bullet For Sandoval appears in an aspect ratio of 2.35:1 on this Blu-ray Disc. Though the packaging states the movie was “remastered and restored in 4K from the original uncut negative”, the Blu-ray came with an inconsistent image.

Though not a bad image, as Bullet looked more than watchable. Still, it felt mushier than I would anticipate.

Sharpness became one of the erratic elements. While parts of the movie displayed very good delineation and most seemed at least reasonably concise, more than a few shots felt oddly soft,

Despite some grain, I suspected a bit of noise reduction here, and that might cause the mushiness I occasionally witnessed. Faces could feel a bit plastic at times, too.

No issues with jagged edges or moiré effects occurred, and I saw no edge haloes. A smattering of print flaws – blotches, gate hairs, lines – popped up but the vast majority of the film remained clean.

Colors leaned toward a dull aqua and a flat amber, though some more vibrant tones sporadically materialized. Perhaps these matched the original photography, but they seemed less full than I’d anticipate and could seem somewhat pale.

At least blacks seemed fairly deep and dense, while low-light shots brought pretty positive clarity. Again, the image didn’t flop, but it seemed up and down.

Don’t expect much from the movie’s iffy LPCM monaural soundtrack. Even for its era, this became a problematic mix.

Like the Spaghetti Westerns that inspired it, Bullet used looped dialogue. The lines consistently felt canned and artificial.

In addition, speech often sounded reedy and metallic. At no point did dialogue come across as anything even vaguely natural, and the lines occasional seemed pretty terrible.

Because the English stems for some shots became lost, those behind this restoration needed to re-record dialogue for a few scenes. While I appreciate this effort, the substitutes didn’t blend well – indeed, the “new” actors stuck out like the proverbial sore thumb.

Effects and music also seemed problematic. At times they showed acceptable range and clarity, but they usually felt a bit distorted and without real impact. I went into the soundtrack with low expectations and the audio lived down to them.

As we head to extras, we locate an audio commentary from filmmaker Alex Cox. He provides a running, screen-specific look at cast and crew, locations and production elements, genre domains and related films, and his thoughts on the movie.

Cox's presence here seems a bit perplexing, as one would expect a "regular" film historian to discuss Bullet. However, I thought Cox might bring the perspective of a veteran filmmaker to the commentary and give us useful thoughts in that domain.

Unfortunately, this doesn't often come to the fore. Instead, Cox largely attempts to fill the historian role, which he doesn't perform especially well.

Oh, Cox does give us some notes about the film as well as its link to others like John Ford's 3 Godfathers.

Unfortunately, Cox just doesn't deliver a lot of real insight, and he also goes MIA a bit too often. I wouldn't call this a bad commentary, but it seems spotty.

Note that Cox recorded his track for the shorter US release of Bullet but he went back to add info about the longer version seen here. These elements reflect on the work done to restore the film to its original European length.

In addition to the film’s US trailer, we get its Original Spanish Open. It runs two minutes, 28 seconds and shows the same intro as in the cut we see but simply with Spanish text.

A tale of revenge, A Bullet for Sandoval becomes an oddly inert affair. A few scenes kick to life, but too much of the movie remains dull and sluggish. The Blu-ray comes with mediocre picture, problematic audio and a spotty commentary. This becomes a meh release for an inconsistent movie.

Viewer Film Ratings: 2 Stars Number of Votes: 1
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