... just another GOOD, BAD, UGLY clone, in fact (which seemingly nobody notices ...). But let's start where things start: 1966 was an important year, simply because one of the best movies ever made saw the light of day then: THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY is a rare piece of motion art, where really everybody involved gave his absolutely best and also succeeded in doing so. There has so much praise been said regarding this movie, that I actually don't have to add any more lines, except maybe this one: Clint Eastwood is maybe the most important director today and was certainly one of the most important and influential actors in the 60ies and 70ies and although he has made more great movies in recent movie history than anybody else, THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY (GBU) still shines as the absolutely and by far best picture he was ever involved in. Quentin Tarantino calls GBU rightly the best picture ever made and IMDb-voters have voted it # 2 of the all-time-best-list (it should be # 1, but I'm sure that will happen some day, smile).
When GBU hit the screens in 1966 it was a major success in Europe, but had a somewhat slow start in the USA, but word-of-mouth got around and finally made this a HUGE hit worldwide.
In Europe the narrative potential of GBU was immediately recognized and multiple clones were made in the years to come, IL MERCINARIO being one of the earlier ones.
But ... well ... Sergio CORBUCCI is not Sergio Leone (despite their sharing their first name), Franco NERO is not Clint Eastwood, Tony MUSANTE is not Eli Wallach and well, Jack PALANCE is probably as good as Lee van Cleef, but his hairdo in this movie having him play a gay (?) gunfighter makes the role of the "BAD" he has to take in IL MERCINARIO somewhat ridiculous (and still this movie isn't a comedy ...). And yes, Ennio Morricone is of course Ennio Morrcione, turning in another major achievement, not as good as in GBU but also not very far from that.
But Corbucci not only copied the three lead roles from GBU, there are in fact many more similarities, from the storyline of hunting stolen (!) gold up to even a scene in which Franco Nero takes bath in the desert, simply lifted and slightly changed from the GBU-scene in which Eli Wallach does the same in front of the short-from-dying Clint Eastwood. Not to mention the shoot-out scene between Nero, Palance and Musante in the bull-fighting arena with camera-shots to their hands in the very same way as on the cemetery in GBU ... anyone who's willing to watch IL MERCINARIO with GBU in mind will find more similarities. IL MERCINARIO is certainly an above-average Italo-western (which doesn't mean that much, considering the low average Italo-westerns have "achieved"), but it's still just a GBU-clone.
But as said above, simply copying main elements of another movie does not necessarily lead to the same outcome although Corbucci still did it much better than many other minor directors. This also shows, how much of the enormous grandeur of GBU is owed to Sergio Leone's fantastic direction, his eye for detail and feeling for timing.
This is what IL MERCINARIO is lacking most in my humble opinion: appropriate timing. Actually the screen is practically permanently crowded with too many people and there's action going on for most of the time, where in fact less would have been more. The cool scenes in between and any better-than-average characterization of the leading men is completely missing as is the dialogue seldomly on the point.
A few months after seeing the GBU one will still remember many scenes, a few days after watching IL MERCINARIO one will most likely only remember the gun pointing out of the pig's head and hardly any more.
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