Kid Vengeance
Kid Vengeance
R | 01 August 1977 (USA)

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One of Cannon Films' two 1976 Italian-Israeli co-productions starring Lee Van Cleef and Leif Garrett (Gianfranco Parolini's Pistola di Dio was the other), this spaghetti western was actually shot in the Middle East by American director Joseph Manduke. Pop star Garrett plays Tom, a teenager who teams with a black gunfighter named Isaac (Jim Brown) to avenge his family. The culprit was McClain (Van Cleef), a sadistic outlaw who carried out the brutal rape-massacre, but his role is minor, as most of the film deals with Tom's maturation and coming to terms with his feelings. Omnipresent 1970s character actors Glynnis O'Connor and John Marley co-star. If there is anything remarkable about Kid Vengeance, it is Francesco Masi's fine musical score, but the film is otherwise anemic.

Reviews
Anoushka Slater While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.
Jerrie It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...
Delight Yes, absolutely, there is fun to be had, as well as many, many things to go boom, all amid an atmospheric urban jungle.
Logan By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.
ma-cortes After witnessing the savage massacre of his family , a boy (Leif Garret) sets out a personal vendetta and rescue his sister (Glynnis O'Connor) against an outlaw band ( Lee Van Cleef, John Marley , among others ) . He carries the revenge in his heart after seeing his family butchered . Former rules of the code of west are dated and nowadays is guided for revenge . He embarks on his vengeance and during his quest teams up with a prospector (Jim Brown ) who has been robbed by the nasties . Together form an alliance going after those who murdered his parents and trying to retrieve the money the bandits robbed him . They are a dynamic duo combining untamed youth and toughness . They travel the southwestern territories and cross paths concerning similar foes they hunt .This average Western/revenge flick is plenty of violence , shootouts and packs loads of action though the director is uninspired and the final is pretty predictable . This mediocre Western vengeance tale is set with Francesco De Massi's good musical score . Features an appearance by stalwart Spaghetti Western Lee Van Cleef as an ugly , brutal, dirty and downright villain with big earring.James Brown as two fisted hero is fine , he starred four Westerns in similar style , three of them along with Van Cleef ( exception is ¨100 rifles¨ ) , they are : ¨Take a hard ride¨ ( directed by Antonio Margheritti ), ¨The Condor¨ ( by John Guillermin ) and ¨Kid Vengeance¨ . Leif Garret as obstinate and impetuous young is nice , he starred two Westerns both of them with Van Cleef , thus was with ¨ A bullet from God ¨ ( by Frank Kramer or Gianfranco Parolini ) and this one .The motion picture is regularly directed by Joseph Manduke .
Steve Nyland (Squonkamatic) This movie sucks. I hated it, every last minute that I allowed to waste my time. It's sorta nice to see that movies can still inspire sheer, honest dislike even after being taught to be accommodating about art. But I think that this is where we draw the line, at least with Westerns. This one was filmed in Isreal by Italians and with American/Isreali money, and is a fantastic example of a movie that probably never needed to be made. It is lame, formulaic, predictable, writes itself, contains zero surprises or charisma, works as "anti-fun" in that you could potentially have more fun staring at a blank TV screen, and it sucked the will to live out of my eyeballs. With about four minutes to go I shut the DVD player off and went for a walk.Hell, I like low budget, foreign made Westerns, especially when they are made by Italians and starring someone like Lee Van Cleef. I even like the "look" of The Holy Land standing in as the wild west, which looks like the moon at times. But I have my limits. This time out Van Cleef gets to play the bad guy, a rapist and leader of a gang of thugs who exist merely to inhabit a very unimaginative Israeli made Western until being killed by the needs of the plot. The main problem is that Van Cleef doesn't make a very evil villain here, which is surprising considering his truly vile Angel Eyes from THE GOOD THE BAD AND THE UGLY. Angel Eyes is the archetype for the Western Gringo Villain. This time out, his character apparently had either plenty of white shirts to change into, or his own laundry delivery out in the middle of the Gobi Desert. He is spotless, suave, well groomed and has the same dry Lee Van Cleef sense of humor -- other than his being a dirtbag and a rapist, I actually kind of liked the guy.THE PLOT: Leif Garrett plays a 12 year old kid who gets to witness his parents being raped and murdered by Van Cleef's motley bunch of misfits and then spends 40 days and 40 nights in the wild taunting and killing them by such tactics as the poisonous snake in the old saddlebag trick (it's not a rattler but some kind of middle eastern Adder variety, and how the kid gets it into the saddlebags is left to the imagination), the old scorpion in the cowboy boots trick, and other imaginative methods of execution that don't really involve having the kid kill anyone. Eventually he meets up with Jim Brown, who doesn't seem to be very interested in being in the film at all. He plays a prospector and there is an annoying subplot about a group of inbred brothers who try to steal his claim which goes nowhere. I think they were supposed to be funny too, which only adds insult to injury for having to watch their on screen "antics". The only thing more disturbing is the way that Garrett's character reacts to having KILLED people, or at least directly causing their deaths, which is about the same way that he might have reacted to falling off his skateboard. It's not his fault though, because the movie just doesn't care how he might have felt about it.Eventually there is a big showdown, and if you've ever seen one Western before you'll be able to predict how it ends up, except that by then we have established a sympathy bond with Van Cleef, who never allows himself to really be as scummy as his gang and insists on being protective + helpful to Garrett's kidnapped, jailbaitish sister, and doesn't jump her pretty bones because he has a little bambino back at home who loves his poppa. Like, yeah right. The most annoying aspect of the film is that as you sit there witnessing it's length you can successfully predict what will happen next right up until the moment when I decided I'd had enough of this crap. Maybe something does happen in the final 4 minutes or so that redeems the rest of the movie, but I rather doubt it and am willing to risk the loss, because like the movie itself, I just don't care.2/10: Check out GOD'S GUN with Van Cleef instead for a better taste of Matzoh Ball Western. Made by the same people in the same place with the same money, and has the distinction of actually being "fun".
hokeybutt KID VENGEANCE (2 outta 5 stars) Cheaply-made and poorly-directed piece of western fluff starring Lee Van Cleef as one of the most vile villains he's ever played. This was during his later years when he was getting a bit long in the tooth to believably play those nasty, tough guy parts... but he is still the most interesting thing in this movie. He leads a bunch of bandits who rape and kill the mom and dad of young Leif Garrett and then kidnap his sister. Leif goes after them with "vengeance" on his mind. He begins to pick off the bandits one by one, using some pretty unconventional means (bow and arrow, rocks, scorpions, the old snake-in-the-saddlebag trick). He eventually teams up with a gold prospector (Jim Brown) whose life savings have been stolen by these men as well. The film starts off looking like a bad TV-movie... but once the raping and killing starts it becomes obvious that this was no "Movie Of The Week". You might be interested enough to sit through it once but this is no classic by any means.
gridoon I admit that I was drawn to this film by Maltin's (negative) review ("bloody, gory Western"), wondering if it could be so explicit. Well, there are many killings here, but you barely get to see any blood. Mainly, this is just an improbable, formula Western tale of revenge. Lee Van Cleef is the sadistic villain, and perhaps he had played a few too many sadistic villains by that point; he has no flair here. Early on, there is a scene so laughably bad, involving an obvious stock shot of a scorpion, that it destroys the film's credibility, and the film never regains it. (*1/2)
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