Kirandeep Yoder
The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.
Leofwine_draca
FAST HAND IS STILL MY NAME is a suitably gritty spaghetti western starring a former peplum star in the title role. Said actor is none other than Alan Steel, here scrawnier and more aged, but still cutting a dash as a tortured soldier who is attacked and forced to witness a massacre perpetrated by a gang of cut-throats. The story subsequently follows a revenge narrative as Steel heads on a path of violent justice to bring those responsible to book. Mario Bianchi's story is sufficiently bloody and shocking to work; it's not one of the most memorable spaghetti westerns in existence, but it does the job ably enough. The excellent supporting cast includes genre regulars Frank Brana and William Berger as members of the aforementioned bandit gang
alwatts
Firearms used during the filming of this movie are of the highest end of the scale the villen manages to fire 21 shots from his six gun at the conclusion of the film the Cavalry are so ahead of their time that they have winchsters when only single shot carbines were available, having said that this is a brutal violent western with lots of blood,sweat and glaring at each other it is hansomely filmed even the Eastman Cloour is exceptable in fact if you like Spaghetti westerns with some grunt this ones for you Alan Steel has a change of outfits trading in his Pirate outfits and Togas for the blue of the Union army. Don't pass this one up enjoy Al Watts
Steve Nyland (Squonkamatic)
Mean spirited, grim, unremittingly violent later period spaghetti western from Mario Bianchi, best known for his horror/porn hybrid films from the 1980s. This is probably the most brutal and sadistic Italian western I have ever seen, and I have seen a lot of them. Your typical SW almost always has an elaborate torture sequence in it's formula where the bad guys string up or strap down the hero, humiliate the guy and make him suffer, usually just for the hell of it. The archetypal torture scene is still the delightful interlude in FISTFUL OF DOLLARS where the greasy pistolero gang relentlessly beat & maim Clint Eastwood while the crazy guy giggles with glee. The point of the torture scene is to prove how tough the hero is as he walks it off, learns how to use his gun hand again even with his fingers crushed (see DJANGO), and kills them all. Tony Anthony made it into an art form, but the point is that the torture sequence is typically just one scene amidst an adventure. It's usually over at some point.FAST HAND IS STILL MY NAME, by contrast to almost every other spaghetti western I have seen, plays out as one extended torture sequence, with a final shootout tacked on for good measure. Former Hercules star Alan Steele -- unable to project emotion under an absurd looking mass of facial hair -- is cast as a Union soldier who runs afoul of insane William Berger and his band of drooling Confederate hicks, and they basically spend the entire film taking turns beating the living crap out of him. Between beatings, they murder innocent homesteaders, rape Injun women, terrorize children, set things on fire, and at one point even rip one of those DO NOT REMOVE UNDER PENALTY OF LAW tags from a mattress before being sold. They are not nice people, and for whatever reason Alan Steele's character pursues them across the frontier, determined to repeatedly give them another chance to beat the road tar out of him one more time. They oblige him.While priding myself for having a pretty strong stomach for movie violence, even I started to feel a bit sickened by how much suffering is packed into this movie. Which may have been the point -- as another commenter here points out, by 1972 spaghetti westerns were pretty much either "Trinity" inspired comedies or drawn out, languid studies on violence. This one's a torture show by comparison. Sure, there's some gunplay and intrigue about a gold robbery, but after watching seven guys gob all over Alan Steele and his mutton chop beard & then cripple his gun hand I was sort of wondering what the hell I had gotten myself into. There's an interesting photographic atmosphere to the film that wallows in cheapness and sleaze, William Berger goes crazier than you've ever seen him go before, and it's always fun to see the giant Ferdinando Bilbao getting some decent screen time.I also didn't have a problem with the "modern" jazz/rock musical score which is delightfully out of place, especially given the content of the film. Worked just fine by juxtaposing against the brutality, making it seem even more perverse, ala CLOCKWORK ORANGE. The bit with the shooting of the gun hand, the face concealing mask of a beard, and the emotionless, mechanical way that Alan Steele seeks & dishes out his vengeance may have suggested Peter Weller's fate in ROBOCOP ... which makes sense, given that film's use of a TV western quick draw as a recurring motif. Inspiration can come from the damndest places. And the payoff climactic revenge killing sequence where Steele springs his trap on the gang is a worthy release for all of the film's built up tension. But this was the paranoid 70s and the film is so paranoid and unrelentingly grim that the hero doesn't even take the foxy Injun girl away with him at the end as he rides out of the very familiar looking, and by 1972 very decrepit, dilapidated spaghetti western movie set town. It had indeed seen better days, I think Richard Harrison and Giacomo Rossi-Stuart had their final showdown in front of the same big hotel back in 1963 at the end of GUNFIGHT AT RED SANDS. Which may have been just as violent, amoral, and brutal as FASTHAND, but was ten times more fun. Here is a spaghetti western for fans who aren't necessarily looking for a good time, which I suspect may have been exactly what Mario Bianchi was getting at. How many times can you watch Bud Spencer get hit in the face with a pie before you decide it's time for something else?5/10; The original Italian title translates out to "They Told Him To Rest In Peace ... But They Were Mistaken". Just in case you were wondering.
spider89119
This movie was made in 1972, but seems more like it came from the mid to late 60's when spaghetti westerns generally had a more serious tone.It is a typical but very good revenge tale about an ex-union officer whose hand was crippled by an ex-confederate who leads a band of guerrillas who continue to terrorize people after the war is over. It's fun to watch as the now clad-in-black hero seems to come back from the dead, and hunts down and kills his enemies one by one.Sergio Ciani plays the protagonist in a performance that is horrible even by spaghetti western standards. In all fairness though, there may be another person dubbing his voice who can be blamed in whole or in part for the wooden performance. I don't know, but it's pretty bad. Fortunately, William Berger makes up for it. He is excellent in the role of Machedo, the leader of the confederate gang. This is definitely Berger's movie. It's probably the best performance I've seen from him.The music score by Ferrio is also very good.If you are into Euro-westerns, this ones worth checking out.
