(1971) That revolutions are violent and ultimately pointless seems to be the screed (opening with a quotation from Mao Tse-Tung) of this gritty, long-noodled (each noodle a long fuse to a scene's detonation) spaghetti western, directed by Sergio Leone, co-written with Luciano Vincenzoni and Sergio Donati. First impressions - the title and opening scenes - may sucker a viewer into expecting a comedy of this sardonic tragedy. Similarly the score's pretty theme, "Invention for John," composed and conducted by Ennio Morricone, while complementing Sean's romantic flashbacks to Ireland of being with his best friend and a lass, starkly contrasts with the ugly events of the movie.

While indifferent to the Mexican Revolution of Poncho Villa and Emiliano Zapata, Juan Miranda (Rod Steiger), a bandit with a family of outlaws, takes revenge upon a stagecoach of privileged persons - an elegant lady, a priest, and three other male passengers - who disparage what they believe is an ignorant, barefooted peasant in their midst.

Shortly afterward Juan with his sons and father make the acquaintance of Sean "John" H. Mallory (James Coburn), an Irish wanted man with fists full of dynamite: "Duck, you sucker." On a motorbike, John says he has a contract for his explosives in the silver mines; Juan initially fails, following an altercation, to persuade "Firecracker" to accompany his gang to Mesa Verde to rob the national bank, a lifelong ambition.

On a train, after Mallory's having eluded them, the Miranda family is befriended by a well-dressed stranger who later appears as Dr Villega (Romolo Valli), a prominent member of the guerrillas, in Mesa Verde. Also waiting in town for Juan is Mallory, suggesting that the bandits take advantage of the situation: "If it's a revolution, it's confusion."

But the town has changed so much since Juan last saw it, full of soldiers rounding up people for firing squads in the streets; he's duped into liberating political prisoners and made a hero of the conflict. To Mallory (for whom "It's personal" from his own experiences in Ireland with revolutionaries) Juan says that in revolutions the poor die and then the same thing happens all over again.

Nevertheless, Juan Miranda volunteers to remain behind with John Mallory to hold off the advancing Mexican military at the bridge of San Jorge, thinking the Irishman has a trick up his sleeve to hightail it for the American border where Juan and John can get a few dollars more robbing banks: "Duck, you sucker."

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