Just perfect...

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

Started out sucky and kept it through out. Talk about hokey, stereotypical, poorly done and just out right bad acting, script writing, and really poor acting, this is one for the books. Jim Brown has never been a good actor in my opinion but he does an even worse job in this movie. Lee Van Cleef has never been any where near a good actor, again in my opinion. Elisha Cook puts in a very nice performance at the start of the movie as Brown's side kick in chains. The actors that play the Mexican bandidos (I guess that what they were suppose to be) are sooo stereotypical it is funny. All in all this movie is really bad.

Former Cleveland Browns fullback Jim Brown and veteran character actor Lee Van Cleef make an unlikely couple of comrades in "Blue Max" director John Guillermin's cynical, epic-scale shoot'em up "El Condor," co-starring Patrick O'Neal, Marianna Hill, Iron Eyes Cody, and Elisha Cook Jr. Lensed on location in scenic Almeria, Spain, this bloodthirsty, profane, R-rated oater depicts the exploits of two soldiers-of-fortune who embark on a life & death struggle to loor a fortune in gold from a heavily fortified garrison in the middle of a savage desert. Hungarian André De Toth, whose chief claim to fame was his 3-D movie "House of Wax," made his share of westerns, so he knew his way around the sagebrush. British director John Guillermin wound up helming a little of everything, from "King Kong" to "The Towering Inferno" and from "Skyjacked" to "Tarzan Goes to India." "El Condor" doesn't rank as Guillermin's finest work, but he delivers the goods more competently than most and doesn't let the actors dawdle. Guillermin keeps the action charging ahead from one improbable predicament to another with aplomb. American scenarists Steven Carabatsos, a script consultant on the original "Star Trek" television series, and "Black Caesar" director Larry Cohen penned the amoral screenplay where virtually everybody turns on everybody else. The Jim Brown hero is the only honorable man amongst everybody. Obviously, Cohen and Carabatsos were channeling the landmark movie "Treasure of the Sierra Madre" where clashes between partners erupted from the greed in their blood.Guillermin effectively establishes the old Western setting in the first scene with a snake crawling through the rocks high above a prison where the inmates are shackled in pairs and taking a break from hard labor. An elderly convict (Elisha Cook Jr. of "The Maltese Falcon") regales his fellow convicts with the story of Emperor Maximilian's lost gold salted away in the El Condor desert where not even armies can get it. The impressionable Luke (Jim Brown of "The Dirty Dozen") believes everything that his convict pal claims so when the camp commandant offers him amnesty by to deploy his skills with explosives, he rejects the offer as fraud and escapes. Later, armed and mounted, Luke tracks down Jaroo (Lee Van Cleef of "Sabata") and tells him about the gold, the army, and the fortress. Jaroo has his hands full when we first meet him. He is getting blind drunk in a saloon with several untrustworthy hombres who want his gold. He lures them to his mind, an elaborate system of tunnels and shoots it out with them. During this gunfight, Luke describes the set-up, but Jaroo believes that they cannot do it. but Luke convinces him that it can be done because the latter controls an army of Indians. Jaroo has three adversaries left to kill when he agrees to become Luke's partner. He asks Luke to help him. Luke sights a convenient cradle of rocks above the last three killers and creates an avalanche with a single bullet that kills them. Jaroo howls with laughter. He comments briefly about his relationship with the Apaches. "I sell them guns that don't work; liquor'd make a white man go blind; I violate their women; and, they still love me." Like good westerns, the heroes don't have it easy. At one point, our heroes are tarred and feathered and run out of town. This is probably the funniest scene with both Brown and Van Cleef plastered head to toe in tar with feathers. Later, Jaroo assembles about 85 braves led by their chieftain Santana (Iron Eyes Cody of "The Big Trail") and they set out to get the gold. Like most search for treasure movies, "El Condor" starts out as fanciful with our heroes imagining their future wealth until they hit rock bottom and discover the horrible truth. All the stacks of gold in the basement of the gigantic fortress are lead ingots painted gold. Inevitably, Luke and Jaroo shoot it out in the last few minutes with predictable results and Luke rides off with the girl.Ultimately, despite its take-charge pace and Maurice Jarre's electrifying score, "El Condor" fails to generate any charisma. Indeed, this western cannot make up its mind whether it wants to be a buddy picture or a movie about the divisive effect of greed. Lee Van Cleef plays the kind of slimy villain that he developed throughout the 1950s and early 1960s, except here he adds comedy. Overall, Van Cleef steals every scene and he has a touching, off-beat scene with a small Mexican lad who he gives a gold nugget because they are both bastards. The problem with "El Condor" is that you cannot really like it because the protagonists aren't pals. Mind you, this could easily have been a funny, bloody, but enjoyable western if the filmmakers had allowed our protagonists to respect each other. Production designer Julio Molina built the sprawling fortress that the filmmakers would bequeath to other filmmakers for movies such as "Conan the Barbarian," "March or Die," and "A Reason to Live, A Reason to Die." The fortress looks like the eighth wonder of the world. Whatever else "El Condor" lacks, this unsavory western boasts spectacular production values.

The western genre is regarded by many (or is it just me?!) as having hit rock-bottom (well, almost) in the 1970s, before almost dying out in the 80s and 90s (ok, ok, dances with wolves, heaven's gate, there have been major westerns since...don't get me wrong). This is a prime example. Star of many terrible spaghetti westerns (and a few good ones) Lee Van Cleef features in this one as a drunken slob of a bandit called Jaroo. He overacts enormously (of course) and is hardly a likeable character, soupy scene with Mexican kid notwithstanding!!!Jim Brown plays Luke, an escaped convict who teams up with him to steal the fabulous treasure of El Condor. Oh, and they also hook up with a bunch of Indians led by a chief called Santana- I wonder if he could play guitar? :-) Anyway, there's also the invevitable cruel Mexican general, a heavily guarded fort, lots of explosions and blood...and some woman who's the girlfriend of the general. The stripping scene was atrocious! Spoiling the climax of the film. Mad!Music by Maurice Jarre is alright. That's about it. And the problem is, it's not even bad enough to be funny!

When he is part of a chain gang, Luke overhears talk of a fort where millions of dollars worth of gold is hidden under the guard of part of the Mexican army. He escapes from his captors and enlists the help of gold prospector Jaroo to help him recover the gold. Jaroo has connections with a tribe of Indians who will be told it is a political matter and promised horses and guns for their help. The duo set out with their enlisted army to attack the fort of General Chavez and steal the gold.This film looked interesting to me because it had a black star in the lead as well as the grizzled Van Cleef. I didn't know anything about the plot but decided to give it a go. Despite some good touches along the way, there isn't really much that makes this western stand out – it's all pretty standard stuff. The ending has a good twist and a downbeat ending but it's nothing that unusual for a western of this sort. The film does have some good bits of light humour, however it also tries to have all the usual clichés thrown in as well – we have the two leads fighting, Jaroo being kind to a child (with sappy Mexican music in background), nudity and Wild Bunch style excessive violence at each stage.The film is still passable as long as you know what you're watching and don't expect too much. As a western it is quite fun if you're just after something undemanding with lots of gunfights. However more than that and you'll be disappointed. The cast carries the film at several points; or at least the lead two do. Jim Brown is a pretty good screen presence even if his skills as an actor leave a little to be desired. Here his physical presence and (slightly out of place, period wise) swagger. Van Cleef has a better character and it's a shame that he plays second fiddle to Brown for much of the film – but he is still very interesting to watch. O'Neal is only so-so, Iron Eyes Cody has little to do and Hill is pretty but not much else.Overall this is a passable western as long as you don't expect too much. It is nicely driven along by the screen presence of Brown and Van Cleef. Other than them and the odd good touch here and there, this film is quite unremarkable as westerns go.