Sergio Martino is easily one of my favourite Italian directors. He's most well known nowadays, of course, for his quite excellent 70's gialli but like most directors in Italy, he had to follow the trends and direct films in several of the popular sub-genres of Italian popular cinema. This was his contribution to the spaghetti western genre and what a great addition it is! Released in 1977, this one was at the very back end of the Italo-western cycle. So, perhaps unsurprisingly, it riffs on several of the important spaghetti efforts of the past and features many tropes of the genre in general. But as far as I am concerned, this is among the best the genre has to offer in the second-tier efforts.
Its story is routine enough and essentially boils down to a bounty hunter drawn into a kidnapping plot. The main character Mannaja is a pretty typical spaghetti western anti-hero, i.e. A loner with supreme weapon skills and a tragic backstory which ties him to an unscrupulous mining boss. So, the components are all quite familiar but Martino's direction is stylish and well-paced, meaning it never gets boring. There's a smattering of typical spaghetti violence throughout, such as hands being lopped off and heads being chomped by the hero's flying axe. Yes, indeed, many anti-heroes in such films have gimmick weaponry and I am not sure if a tomahawk counts as a gimmick precisely but it is certainly unusual enough to be pretty distinctive! On that subject, Maurizio Merli, who is much more associated with roles in brutal poliziotteschi crime flicks, is very good in the lead role, while John Steiner is excellent as the cold killer Voller. In total, this all adds up to make Mannaja one of the most enjoyable Italian westerns I have seen.
Its story is routine enough and essentially boils down to a bounty hunter drawn into a kidnapping plot. The main character Mannaja is a pretty typical spaghetti western anti-hero, i.e. A loner with supreme weapon skills and a tragic backstory which ties him to an unscrupulous mining boss. So, the components are all quite familiar but Martino's direction is stylish and well-paced, meaning it never gets boring. There's a smattering of typical spaghetti violence throughout, such as hands being lopped off and heads being chomped by the hero's flying axe. Yes, indeed, many anti-heroes in such films have gimmick weaponry and I am not sure if a tomahawk counts as a gimmick precisely but it is certainly unusual enough to be pretty distinctive! On that subject, Maurizio Merli, who is much more associated with roles in brutal poliziotteschi crime flicks, is very good in the lead role, while John Steiner is excellent as the cold killer Voller. In total, this all adds up to make Mannaja one of the most enjoyable Italian westerns I have seen.