My Name Is Nobody

Matt!2.5

The story of the OG diehard toxic fanboy.Based on an idea conjured up by Sergio Leone but featuring approximately zero of his talent behind the camera, My Name Is Nobody is an odd duck of a film which follows an aging gunslinger, played by Henry Fonda (who was similarly past his prime), as he tries desperately to retire but continuously finds himself being goaded by a wide-eyed and equally quick-shooting fan, played by baby-blue-eyed Terence Hill and coined “Nobody”, to end his career in style by going up against the 150-man Wild Bunch gang.This movie is frustratingly strange in that it draws a distinct line in the sand between “Spaghetti Western” and “screwball comedy”, then brazenly hops from one side to the other over and over instead of trying to happily marry the two, and ends up being kind of two separately half-assed attempts at either. Silly, stupid, and yet somehow endearing in its blowhard tomfoolery. Terence Hill’s performance as Nobody works well when he’s being a cocky show-off, but good lord is he cringe-inducing when he’s trying to do a slapstick act. I’m not sure I’ve found a brand of humor that works less for me than the majority of his antics here.It also doesn’t help that it’s accompanied by a shockingly inconsistent Morricone score which sounds like it belongs alongside a Nintendo video game loading screen, almost like he’s trying to parody his other works.This is regarded by many as a B-grade classic, but I’ll be honest, it just doesn’t do it for me. However, the glimpses of cheeky homages to far (far far FAR) superior Spaghetti Westerns help to make it a watch I can at least find some value in.Top 50 Westerns All Time

Hesse4.0

Sergio Leone really said “okay, now a silly one”

theriverjordan3.5

This is the way the spaghetti Western ends. Not with a bang, but a moron. Kicking off with the peppy melody of an Ennio Morricone score that sounds right out of a soda commercial — it’s clear right off the bat that director Tonino Valerii is up to some clownery in “My Name is Nobody.” The film, about a greenhorn (Terence Hill) egging on a legendary gunslinger (Henry Fonda) to show the speed of his draw and face down The Wild Bunch .... is moronic. Now, this isn’t necessarily a condemnation. I’ve known some very pleasant morons in my time. The ‘wah wah’ stand-off music hits a little too hard, Fonda is just a little too pathetic to be called coolly jaded, and Hill a bit too dumb to be called naive. Everything feels as entrancingly off-axis as the dwarf on stilts during a very Fellini-esque circus scene in the film (allegedly ghost-directed by producer Sergio Leone). Much like its wide-eyed protagonist is obsessed with the bombastic myths of the West, “Nobody” naval gazes in awe of its own genre. To be fair, it’s a very pretty naval. Hill’s sandy locks were meant to invoke those of spaghetti icon Franco Nero, and Morricone’s deliberately dumb score japes at his own achievements past. It’s the death knell of the Western - made by, and invoking, some of the very hands that made it. In case the point doesn’t hit hard enough... there’s even a grave marker in the film for one ‘Sam Peckinpah.’ Hill reads it out loud. Just in case you -still- weren’t getting what the movie was laying down— thicker than month-old sasparila. Before being phased out by the comedia l’Italianna and crime genres, Spaghetti Westerns tackled: fascism, Western interventionism, racism, colonialism, and misogyny. But it only takes one bullet - shot by either an icon or an idiot - to end a winning streak of gunfights.From West to East(wood): Westerns Ranked