For a Few Dollars More (1965)

For a Few Dollars More (1965)

8/10

Starring

Clint Eastwood

Directed by Sergio Leone

For a Few Dollars More is a continuation of Sergio Leone’s “Man with No Name” character and is Leone’s second Spaghetti Western film. This movie doesn’t follow or continue the story of the first film, A Fistful of Dollars (1964). It’s an entirely new story, but just as good and worthy of being classified as a classic.

Clint Eastwood returns to play the lead role (the Man with No Name), alongside Lee Van Cleef as Colonel Douglas Mortimer (who wasn’t in the first movie). This movie is just as dark as A Fistful of Dollars (1964)—death is apparent every 20 minutes or so—and the story is catchy, keeping you guessing.

Many characters from the first film were cast again in this one. Gian Maria Volontè, who played Ramón in the first film, plays El Indio here, and many of his gang members from the first movie are also part of his gang in this one.

The setting of the movie is awesome, and you’re sucked into the characters’ lives as you see them converge for a grand ending. Unlike A Fistful of Dollars (1964), where the budget was minimal and the effects weren’t worth noting, this film had a budget three times larger, and the effects were much better. The dialogue and screenplay also saw significant improvements.

The movie introduces Eastwood’s character and Mortimer as bounty hunters who are among the best in the field. They go after big targets, and their paths cross when they both go after the same man, El Indio, who has a $10,000 bounty on his head. His gang members also have reasonable bounties. The two decide to work together to capture Indio and his gang, with Eastwood’s character infiltrating the gang and Mortimer working on the outside.

Eastwood’s character is more focused on the financial gain, while Mortimer is driven by a personal vendetta against Indio. Just when things start lining up the way they hoped, Indio outsmarts them.

In this movie, we get to know more about the depths of the lead characters—except for Eastwood’s character, who remains a mystery, which is the whole point of his persona. Critically, the movie has a 94% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes and was a huge box office success, making over $15 million on a $600,000 budget.

If you haven’t had the privilege of seeing the Dollars Trilogy, I highly recommend it. Start with A Fistful of Dollars (1964) and work your way down to the final film, The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966).