Face to Face

The middle film of Sergio Sollima's political western trilogy, and the one with the sharpest argument. Gian Maria Volonte plays a tubercular New England history professor who heads west for his health, falls in with Tomas Milian's bandit, and slowly discovers a talent for command and cruelty he never suspected. It is a western about how respectable men become tyrants, written with real conviction, and Morricone scores it. Sollima never got Leone's reputation, but he had more on his mind than any of them. If you liked The Big Gundown, this is the better film.