BANG BANG KID (1967)
Article 2498 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 2-5-2008
Posting Date: 6-14-2008
Directed by Giorgio Gentili and Luciano Lelli
Featuring Tom Bosley, Guy Madison, Riccardo Garrone
Country: Spain / Italy

A western town is under the thumb of the evil Bear Bullock and his gunslinger assistant, Killer Kossock. Help comes in the form of a man who has invented a gun-fighting robot.

My first impulse is to take the movie to task for the non-stop narration that makes up the first ten-to-fifteen minutes of this spaghetti western science fiction comedy. However, that’s probably the funniest part of the movie. That’s not to say that the opening is really funny; it’s pretty lame, but the rest of the movie is even lamer. The central idea is cute enough, and it has some possibilities, but the movie fails to take advantage of any of them, and it falls flat on its face on every conceivable level. The movie also has its weird moments; it occasionally puts forth a visual metaphor in which Bear Bullock is a tyrannical king, the villagers are oppressed peasants, and the inventor is a knight in shining armor, but this aspect of the movie just makes it more bizarre without adding to the humor. In short, this is a listless and rather dull misfire.