Bandidos

Massimo Dallamano's 1967 Italian film follows the revenge of the gunman Richard Martin, whose hands were crippled by a former student. He can no longer shoot; instead he finds a convict wrongly imprisoned, trains him, and tries to take his revenge through another man's hands. Dallamano had worked as cinematographer on Sergio Leone's early films, and the visual language here comes from that school: wide faces, long silences, hard sun. What makes it interesting is that the teacher and student relation means both instruction and use. The story is faithful to the template and the characters thin. The violence is measured for an Italian western of its period. Who it's for: viewers who like Italian westerns and revenge stories. Who it's not for: anyone expecting something outside the template, or avoiding violent content.