Breakinger A Brilliant Conflict

Twilightfa Watch something else. There are very few redeeming qualities to this film.

Motompa Go in cold, and you're likely to emerge with your blood boiling. This has to be seen to be believed.

Cheryl A clunky actioner with a handful of cool moments.

adrianswingler Franco Nero said in an interview that this was much more like American Westerns and he was right. Unfortunately, I think many that have grown to think of Rodriguez's Mariachi trilogy, or, heaven forbid Tarantino's Django trash, may think that a Spaghetti Western is so purely because of its style. If so, this one won't disappoint you. It is stylistically well done.But that's not what made Spaghetti Westerns what they were. Before the death of the Hollywood "Production Code", there was a BIG difference in terms of the subtext, the message of the movie. American Westerns of the '50s were terrorist morality tales, where the sheriff is the good guy, clean shaved, and Mexicans and Indians are terrorists out to be subdued by the morally righteous Yankees. The radical left in Italy systematically deconstructed that with protagonists that seldom saw a razor, were morally ambiguous, and the tin star was, as so directly put by the sheriff in "Sartana the Gravedigger", "just for show". In many in the genre the pillars of society are the most violent and morally corrupt individuals in the picture. Gringo intervention in Mexico is a analogy for the Viet Nam war. Only Sam Peckinpah did that within the American system. His "Major Dundee" deliberately deconstructs the worst colonial assumptions of "Rio Grande", particularly in the final scenes.This is the opposite of that. Here, a Mexican revolutionary pleads with the heroes to help the cause because "you two are Americans. You're both free. You went through this already. You understand". While that might seem, on the face of it, to be the poor struggling against the system, it's embracing the colonial assumption of the US as the world's policeman, and recreating that moral righteousness. In that sense this is much more in the vein of a Ford movie than a Damiani Western. So, for me, this isn't a Spaghetti Western for the same reason Tarantino's are not, though this one is not nearly so vacuous. A real Spaghetti Western is the product of a mentality which promoted leftist struggle of the poor against their oppressors. Jean Pierre Gorin, Jean- Luc Goddard's creative partner, put it best- "every Marxist on the block wanted to make a Western". None of them would have made this one.

MARIO GAUCI The first and, presumably, best of director Baldi's six Spaghetti Westerns (I'd watched his last – BLINDMAN [1971] co-starring Ringo Starr[!] – as part of the Italian B-movie retrospective during the 2004 Venice Film Festival) finds genre icon Franco Nero in good stoic form as a man out to avenge his father's death (incidentally, it was the star's own first genre outing…to be followed that same year by two even better efforts in Sergio Corbucci's star-making DJANGO and Lucio Fulci's MASSACRE TIME).Against his better judgement, he's accompanied on the peril-fraught odyssey (which takes him from Texas to Mexico) by his younger sibling – played by Alberto Dell'Acqua (using the hilarious pseudonym Cole Kitosch!). However, this turns out to have a strong bearing on the plot – despite typical scenes in which the inexperienced and impulsive kid has to be rescued within an inch of his life by big brother – since the man they're after results in being Kitosch's real father (having raped Nero's mother immediately after bumping off her outlaw hubby, an event seen in a rather limp flashback). In the meantime, the villain has been lording it over a poor Mexican province (as much at ease casually picking off rebelling peones with his prize pistol as when playing the pipe organ in his living-room!) – aided by uncouth and alcoholic Alcalde Livio Lorenzon (even if it's later established that the latter's more human, and bitter, than he lets on).With this in mind, the script demonstrates atypical care towards characterization – in fact, another figure who's given his due is that of the lawyer played by Luigi Pistilli (a versatile "Euro-Cult" stalwart) who secretly hopes to organize an uprising against the tyrant, and constantly pleads with Nero to join their ranks. By the way, one further twist on the Spaghetti Western scenario is that, at one point, it's the villainous hordes who are ambushed by the good guys! The action throughout, then, is pretty good (including some quite vigorous fistfights) – starting off with the credit sequence involving a lengthy shoot-out, eventually stopped by cool sheriff Nero, between a bounty hunter and his quarry; the latter is accompanied by the evocative and melancholy theme tune (the work of Spanish composer Anton Abril), which can be heard several times during the course of the film without overstaying its welcome.For the record, I'd first gotten hold of this one in Italian – which is always the preferred language for me with this type of film – but it kept skipping over a good part of that opening confrontation due to some glitch (the same fate, albeit to an ever greater extent, had actually befallen another Spaghetti Western with Nero that I acquired in the past but subsequently couldn't watch as a result i.e. Luigi Bazzoni's MAN, PRIDE AND VENGEANCE [1968]); in the case of Texas, ADIOS I had to make do with the next best thing – an English-dubbed edition (even if Nero himself, who usually re-records his own dialogue parts on the English soundtracks of his films, is dubbed, too). At the end of the day, this is a minor genre offering but a reasonably effective and enjoyable one nevertheless.

Gutwrencher im glad i just saw the movie for the first time. why? i didnt have to be so damned concerned about the "poor dubbing" some are whining about. the dvd comes with the italian track!! anyway, i never have complained about a films poor dubbing job. im much more into any film to sometimes notice. i may giggle a little....but its not that distracting. i also get a kick out of how many people cant handle "keoma" because of the music. whatever. i thought it kinda fit...so im weird. TEXAS ADDIO is a great story with solid action again featuring the italian gun-slingin master, franco nero. i really enjoy that guy and im looking forward to him with the dvd release of "django". i have over 1000 dvds in my collection but my euro-western section is only 21 titles long with more on the way. "texas.." is most welcome in my collection and worth repeated veiwings. many j. wayne films sit close to the sketti titles but they have nothing to do with each other except for that they are all great westerns. also close by is "dead man" with j. depp....a great film but comparing and sizing up actors and titles is a waste of time for me. also see "the great silence" and "bullet for the general" if you have not checked them out yet. youll find nice dvds of each on shelves now.

cengelm Sheriff Burt Sullivan and his younger brother Jim want to take revenge for their murdered father and say "Good bye, Texas!" to head for Cisco Delgado, the hiss-and-hate bad guy, who resides in Mexico. Unlike in many other Spaghetti Westerns the hero is never really slick and instead decides for an against-all-odds approach. The darkness of other serious spaghetti westerns is missing.The sung score is memorable, the cinematography of Enzo Barboni is mediocre, Franco Nero is good as usual while the other actors do their job with little ambition. Overall this Western has average quality.5 / 10.