The Good, the Bad and the Ugly, 1966 - ★★★★½

You can also find this review on Letterboxd

This is my first entry into the Letterboxd Season Challenge.
Week one - Watching a previous unseen movie out of Roger Eberts Great Movies.

The Good, the Bad and the Ugly is the first real Western I have watched (I think).
It is about 3 guys, one good, one bad and one ugly, who all have the same goal: to find 200.000 dollars that some guy buried on a graveyard. The problem? Two of them know the name of the graveyard, but only one of them knows the name of the grave. So they have to work together.

First of all, this movie is very long, which was the main reason I haven't watched it for so long. And it felt long. I had to take breaks in between (mostly because I had to walk the dog) so it took me the whole day to watch this. But it was worth it.
A reason this movie is so long is because there is so much happening. The 3 titular characters don't meet until around one and a half hours in. Also they don't get that goal of 200.000 dollars until 1 hour into the movie.

I love the music, the main theme that already starts in the opening sequence. A great opening sequence by the way. It really got me into the mood for a classic wild west movie.

After that opening we have a long scene without any dialogue. Just lots of stares. The whole beginning of the movie with Angel Eyes visiting some guy and questioning him is great. It's all told through body language for the first 5 or 6 minutes. And even after that they don't use many words.
This leads into my next point, the acting is great. Lee van Cleef, who plays Angel Eyes, is great and looks like the perfect cowboy-villain.
Eli Wallach as Tuco is probably one of my favorite characters. The character is despicable but at the same time likeable, which is a bad mix. He deserves to be hanged, but at least I didn't want to see him hanged, so every time he had a rope around his neck (which happens more often than you'd think) I was not sure if he survives it.
And of course Blondie, played by the one and only Clint Eastwood. To be honest he looked worse than I expected. I always thought he was the super hero good guy in those movies but even though he is "the good" he isn't that good.
I think he kills the most people in the whole movie, and of course this is a different time and probably was normal, but he just pulls out the gun and shoots. The kills aren't bloody but still the murders are cold blooded.

Talking about him being "the good", the movie titles the characters in the beginning of the movie, Angel Eyes is the Bad, Tuco is the Ugly and Blondie is the Good. But are they really? I'm not sure about that but I don't wanna get too much into this.

This movie is beautifully shot. Every scene looks awesome, especially the landscapes are beautiful.

All in all I had a good time watching this. I had fun. I rate this movie 4 and a half stars and give it a like.