MIM Movie Review

This is an archive of the former website of the Maoist Internationalist Movement, which was run by the now defunct Maoist Internationalist Party - Amerika. The MIM now consists of many independent cells, many of which have their own indendendent organs both online and off. MIM(Prisons) serves these documents as a service to and reference for the anti-imperialist movement worldwide.

The Master Gunfighter 1975 PG 121 minutes

A Spanish Don (landlord) in Mexico plots to steal Amerikkkan gold to pay Amerikkkan- sponsored taxes in corrupt Mexico. All is fine and good till he kills off a village of indigenous people that witnessed the theft to keep the Amerikkkans from finding out.

The Master Gunfighter enters at this point to tell his best friend the Spanish Don to massacre no more. One year the Spanish Don goes back on his promise, but only the Master Gunfighter is in a position to know and do something about it. He returns from exile and chops and shoots up enemies.

Judging from the action, which sells the movie of course, the hero ends up killing more people than he saves, but that is a detail. He believes he is fighting to save innocent wimmin and children which he is.

Another detail is that a Black Amerikan spy ends up playing the good guy. It's hard to deny that he deserves to burn at the stake given the Amerikan role in the whole situation, but he escapes to side with the Master Gunfighter.

The film has obvious echoes of Vietnam (and hence today's Iraq War as well). It's strength is that it shows the decision of a military servant of the upper class going over to the other nation's side, the indigenous side. The hero ends up killing his friends and associates to protect the indigenous people. That is internationalism in practice. In his own mind he had to side with the indigenous to protect his honor as a man who would not take the blood of wimmin and children. Even more starkly than the recent remake of "Zorro," the indigenous people play almost no role in saving themselves. The good guys had to burn a church to scare the people out of their fear of the rulers. The overall line on the church's influence is excellent.

The movie brings in the economic angle from the viewpoint of the landlord. He says he cannot do anything else but massacre indigenous people if everyone will lose their land thanks to Amerikan and Mexican corruption. At the end of the movie, the people do lose their land. Although the movie does not offer a good economic solution, it does well to raise the landlord's quandary and place violence in an economic context.

Styles look a little silly, 1970s of course. Nonetheless this is better than most B-grade movies. Give it at least a "B+."