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The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
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alt title(s): The Good The Bad And The Ugly "You see, in this world there's two kinds of people, my friend: Those with loaded guns and those who dig. You dig."
— Blondie
During the American Civil War, the bounty hunter "Blondie" and the bandit Tuco are running a con game until the former decides to terminate their partnership and take the money. Tuco sets out for revenge. A mercenary, Angel Eyes, finds out about a stolen cache of Confederate gold, and learns the name of the man who knows where it's hidden. Tuco and Blondie stumble upon this knowledge and the three gunslingers engage in a battle of betrayal across the war-torn landscape.
The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly, released in 1966, was one of the "Dollars" trilogy of Spaghetti Westerns that served as a Deconstructor Fleet to the entire Western genre. It is the last, and probably the most famous of the trilogy, and is credited with helping to kill the Western genre and inventing a bevy of new tropes (not to mention popularizing the Mexican Standoff). It's had an incredible impact on nearly all films since then, and is generally regarded as one of the best films ever created.
The film provides examples of:
- Adopt The Dog: See Crowning Moment Of Heartwarming below
- Amazing Freaking Grace: Used for Soundtrack Dissonance during Tucos No Holds Barred Beatdown.
- Anti Hero: Blondie and Tuco.
- Bad Ass: All the main characters.
- Badass Longcoat: Blondie, until he leaves his coat as a cover for the dead soldier and finds his trademark poncho.
- Ballistic Discount
- Behind The Black
- Black And Gray Morality: The inevitable result of deconstructing the typical morality present in most Westerns.
- Bounty Hunter: Blondie and Angel Eyes.
- Character Alignment: The movie doesn't give clear cut examples, but each of the main characters represents a different facet of good, neutral and evil in some regard:
- Blondie starts off the movie as a totally neutral character, but gradually drifts into Neutral Good territory as the movie nears its end.
- Tuco is Chaotic Neutral if you were moved by the speech he gave to his brother, or Chaotic Evil if you believe that he performed all the crimes that were listed by the two hangmen near the beginning of the movie.
- Angel Eyes exhibits mostly Neutral Evil tendencies, though he does lean on Lawful Evil what with his insistence on always completing a contract he gets paid for. Always.
- Click Hello
- Clothes Make The Legend: We see the Man With No Name pick up his trademark poncho amongst other identifying traits throughout the film.
- Complete Monster: Angel Eyes
- Crowning Moment Of Funny: Dozens of them, mostly courtesy of Tuco (and sometimes at his expense). One of the best visual jokes involves Tuco and Blondie who, disguised as Confederates, spot an approaching army riding towards them. Noticing their grey uniforms, Tuco starts cheering for the South and spouting curses at the Yankees... until the soldiers come closer and start to shake the grey dust of the desert out of their blue uniforms.
- The scene where Tuco tries to convince Blondie to tell him the name on the grave. "It's lucky you weren't alone out there!"
- The scene where Tuco robs a store after making it look like he's haggling over the price of a gun takes the cake, in this editor's mind.
- Crowning Moment Of Heartwarming: Blondie, who has been an unapologetically cynical and cruel person throughout the entire film, finally lives up to his label of "The Good" when he comforts a dying soldier in an unpretentiously spontaneous moment of kindness, lighting the boy One Last Smoke and warming him with a blanket in his final moments.
- Crowning Music Of Awesome: The theme is one of the most recognizable songs ever.
- The last 15 minutes of the film feature "The Ecstasy of Gold" and "The Trio", two of the best pieces of film score ever. The former was even covered by Metallica.
- Deconstructor Fleet: For The Western.
- Designated Hero: Outside of a Pet The Dog moment here and there, Blondie's status as 'the Good' is...pretty questionable. He mostly comes across well in comparison because his chief rivals are both utterly ruthless gits.
- Dirty Coward: Tuco.
- Enemy Mine: Blondie and Tuco.
- Enforced Method Acting: Sergio Leone let a dog onto the set during one of the final scenes without telling anyone. Eli Wallach's reaction was kept.
- Epic Riff: The flute part at the beginning of the main theme.
- Establishing Character Moment: They're even labelled!
- Fridge Logic: During the scene where Blondie and Tuco are watching the Union and Confederacy fight over the contested bridge, they are forced to duck away from incoming mortar fire. They take refuge behind what they quickly discover are crates full of dynamite. Not ten seconds after this revelation a wounded soldier is brought in five feet behind them and a doctor begins prepping for an operation. Uh, doc? Maybe you should move wounded men away from high explosives before trying to save their lives?
- How come Blondie hasn't been issued his own Wanted Poster, since he keeps helping Tuco escape? Or Angel Eyes, for that matter - leaving witnesses alive seems as if it would be pretty counterproductive for an assassin.
- Heroic Sociopath: Tuco.
- Ironic Echo: Blondie's use of Tuco's "There Are Two Kinds Of People In The World" Catch Phrase at the end of the film.
- It Works Better With Bullets
- Just Between You And Me: Subverted and kicked while it's down, by multiple characters.
- Kick The Dog: Angel Eyes is good at this. Blondie and Tuco get a few too.
- Laughably Evil: Tuco... just Tuco.
- Leave The Camera Running: Some scenes take too long. Doesn't hurt the movie much.
- Long List: Tuco's crimes.
- Mexican Standoff: Famous for it.
- No Holds Barred Beatdown: Tuco's torture scene at the Union prison camp. Immediately preceded by a nice dinner.
- No Name Given: "Blondie", the titular Good, is a nickname, used only by Tuco; his real name is never mentioned, and the character is known as the Man With No Name. Also, "Angel Eyes", the titular Bad. The latter is also referred to as Sentenza, which may or may not be his name.
- No OSHA Compliance: Truth In Television, since Eli Wallach describes being almost decapitated during the filming of one of the train scenes on the DVD.
- Obfuscating Stupidity: Tuco, who seems a dim-witted buffoon but is actually quite a Badass .
- Offscreen Teleportation
- One Liner: Almost all of the dialogue.
- Overly Long Name: Tuco Benedicto Pacífico Juanmaria Ramirez, "known as the Rat".
- Pay Evil Unto Evil: What Blondie does to Tuco (among others).
- Pet The Dog: Blondie gets two; petting a kitten, and comforting a dying soldier.
- Tuco gets one, when he meets with his brother and gives a shockingly eloquent defense for the life he's lived and the choices he's made.
- Prequel (possibly, for the earlier "Dollars" movies)
- Psycho For Hire: Angel Eyes
- Quick Draw
- Screw The Money I Have Rules: Oddly enough, Angel Eyes. One man hires him to kill another, and his target tries to pay him to kill the man who sent him. He kills them both.
- But cheerfully accepts their money...
- Shoot The Rope: Subverted; the 'hero' in this case is Tuco, and the Big Damn Hero is Blondie.
- Smoking Is Cool
- Sound Effect Bleep: "A dirty son of a *AAAAAAAH*"
- Talk To The Fist: "If you gotta shoot, shoot — don't talk!"
- Tearjerker: See Crowning Moment Of Heartwarming, above.
- The Gunslinger: Rather obviously, all of the main characters.
- There Are Two Kinds Of People In The World: Tuco's Catch Phrase, always with a different ending. Also used in an Ironic Echo at the end.
- Touch Of The Monster: The Death Ray Vision type. Poor Maria.
- Travel Montage: Quite a few throughout the film.
- What A Senseless Waste Of Human Life: Blondie remarks on this upon seeing a clash between Union and Confederate troops over a contested bridge.
- Why Dont You Just Shoot Him: Lampshaded. A man Tuco wronged hunts him down, and with him at gunpoint, gives a monologue about how he spent years plotting his revenge. An unimpressed Tuco interrupts his moment of glory by shooting him with a concealed gun, quipping "If ya gonna shoot, shoot, don't talk!"
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