Eureka Blu-ray Film Review

The Specialists (1969) • Blu-ray [Eureka Classics]

A gunfighter contends with a pacifist sheriff, a seductive banker, a one-armed Mexican bandit, corrupt businessmen, and hippies, while trying to learn the secret of the money allegedly stolen by his lynched brother.

The Specialists delivers everything one could want from a Euro-western… plus a few things one might not! There’s no denying writer-director Sergio Corbucci is trying to keep things interesting in what was a late-entry into an over-worked genre. This is the final addition to his loosely related ‘Mud and Blood Trilogy’ that began with Django (1966), perhaps his best-known movie after the recent Quentin Tarantino reboot, and then The Great Silence (1968), considered by many to be his finest film.

The Specialists follows the successful template set out by another Sergio-Leone — in his ‘Dollar Trilogy’, beginning with A Fistful of Dollars (1964), coupled with Duccio Tessari’s first Ringo film, A Pistol for Ringo (1965). We have all the familiar…