ChicDragon It's a mild crowd pleaser for people who are exhausted by blockbusters.

KnotStronger This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

Myron Clemons A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.

Yash Wade Close shines in drama with strong language, adult themes.

bkoganbing Burt Reynolds and a cast of unfamiliar European names with the exception of Fernando Rey are in this spaghetti western Navajo Joe. It's the Clint Eastwood route for Burt who did a few westerns as did Eastwood when he returned to the USA. Only Reynolds did one and only and it was this one. He sure never got asked to repeat the role for a sequel.In the title role Reynolds is waging a one man war of revenge against a gang of scalphunters who sell their bounty to a certain town. But new outlaw possibilities have opened up and for a once despised Indian the settlers now see Reynolds as their only hope against a rather nasty and depraved group of deplorables.Reynolds is a grim character in Navajo Joe. He wouldn't be this grim on the screen until he did Malone two decades later. In fact speaking of Clint Eastwood there's a lot of similarities between Navajo Joe and a much better film High Plains Drifter. Perhaps it might have been better had the Reynolds hero been as mysterious as Eastwood's.Navajo Joe is a subpar spaghetti western and I'm not a fan of the genre in any case.

Steffi_P One of the better known spaghetti westerns, directed by Sergio Corbucci, probably the most prolific director of spaghettis. While it was Sergio Leone who made the masterpieces, Corbucci carved out his own little niche and made several important contributions to the genre. Navajo Joe is also known for featuring the up-and-coming Burt Reynolds in one of his earliest roles.Unlike Sergio Leone, Corbucci seems to have had a really passionate agenda for making what he saw as inflammatory anti-westerns. Here his mission is to restore the balance of treatment of Native Americans in the Hollywood western. He wasn't being quite as radical as it at first appears though, seeing as Robert Aldrich had done the same thing ten years earlier with Apache, starring cinema's other famous Burt (Lancaster). Joe is an interesting character compared to the usual spaghetti anti-hero though, as his extortion and cynicism are continually influenced by this higher purpose he has of seeking justice.Italian westerns were really becoming big business by this point, and Navajo Joe has somewhat bigger production values than Corbucci's earlier films. The dubbing is of a much higher quality than that in Django, although it's still not great. Nothing can cover the weakness of the plot - aside from the Native American angle it's a fairly basic train robbery story. There's a half-hearted attempt at injecting some mystery and suspense into it with the Doctor Lynn character doing an inside job, but this never really gets off the ground. The actual dialogue is terrible too.Corbucci showed promise as a director in Django, but in Navajo Joe the direction is nothing special. Whereas Django made great use of interiors and dark spaces, Navajo Joe is in 'scope and mostly set outdoors, but Corbucci really has no feel for landscapes. He gives a great rough and ready feel to the action scenes, but overall there are just too many zooms and pointless camera moves.Although he would later become a big star back home, Burt Reynolds isn't particularly good here. He moves fairly well, and gives Joe just the right note of self-absorbed nonchalance, but when he opens his mouth terrible things happen. He puts in these little pauses, as if trying to deliver lines like John Wayne, except he falls well short. He actually manages to do the seemingly impossible and do an unconvincing job of dubbing himself. The only acting performance really worth noting is that of Aldo Sanbrell. Sanbrell was one of the most prolific spaghetti character actors, playing third-bad-guy-on-the-left in dozens of pictures. Here is a rare chance to seem him in a lead role, and he's actually not bad. Not good, but not bad either.Burt Reynolds once stated that this was the worst film he ever made. It's probably not, (as anyone who's seen the Smokey and the Bandit sequels will testify) but it is a fairly bad one, and if Reynolds wasn't familiar with exploitation cinema he no doubt wondered what the hell he was doing. Corbucci had already made one of the best loved spaghettis (Django) and would go on to make some real classics (The Mercenary, The Great Silence), but Navajo Joe was a real step backwards in his career.

Witchfinder General 666 "Navajo Joe" is certainly not be as great as Sergio Corbucci's masterpieces "Django" and "The Great Silence", but it is still a highly entertaining, if cheesy, Spaghetti Western. Like most Westerns by Corbucci, Navajo Joe has a sociocritical message, as it portrays racism and the genocide of the Native American population. Predominantely, however, Navajo Joe is a very entertaining Spaghetti Western with an excellent score by Ennio Morricone.A gang of unscrupulous bandits led by Duncan (Aldo Sambrell) ride through the American Southwest and kill every Indian they can find for the one-dollar reward on an Indian scalp. Joe (Burt Reynolds), a Navajo warrior and merciless avenger, starts haunting the scalp- hunters and soon becomes their worst nightmare.Burt Reynolds is decent enough as the eponymous hero. Reynolds is certainly not a great Spaghetti Western antihero, but he fits the role better than one would suppose. Nicoletta Macchiavelli does a good job as Estella, a beautiful half Indian half white woman who lives in a white community. The best performance in this movie, however, comes from Aldo Sambrell in the role of the scalp-hunter Duncan, a despicable man who is nothing but greed and concentrated hate. The score by Ennio Morricone is brilliant as always, Quentin Tarantino used some of it for Kill Bill Vol.2. If you like Spaghetti Westerns, you have to love Sergio Corbucci. Navajo Joe is not quite as brilliant as his masterpieces "Django" and "The Great Silence", but it is without doubt a more than worthwhile Spaghetti Western and recommended to every fan of the genre.

Adrien I have seen this movie in English (without subtitles) so i didn't understand all subtlety of the dialogs which are really interesting in Corbucci's movies. NAVAJO JOE is an extraordinary spaghetti western which deserve to be known by all who want to know the real "lost" cinema. In effect, the master of Italian western (don't forget Sergio Leone please) have directed a lot of wonderful movies like DJANGO, IL MERCENARIO, IL GRANDE SILENZIO or COMPANEROS...using different composers like Luis Enriquez Bacalov or Ennio Morricone (Leo Nichols in NAVAJO JOE) who are the most known. Quentin Tarantino has shown that he was crazy about these movies with there tribute in KILL BILL (Bill's death music is from NAVAJO JOE "the demise of Barbara, and the return of Joe" or the ear scene in RESERVOIR DOGS which is a tribute to the DJANGO's ear scene. So, look these movies