In my humble opinion, Sergio Sollima's "Face to Face" could be qualified as the same like having a gold mine and use it as a ...potatoe storehouse. The theme of how easily and unexpectedly the human nature can swing from one extremity into another; of how narrow and often even illusive is the line between the "good" and the "bad" ; how deeply rooted instincts and long suppressed cravings just wait beneath a seemingly monotonous surface for a chance to burst out ; about the conflict or the symbiosis between the sophisticated intellect and the brutal force and the respective consequences; how relations between persons can shape the relations between groups - all that could serve as material for a work, elevated to the classical dramas, actually served simply as a food for a hollow, unconvincing, naivistic would-be-revolutionary rehearsal of movie making. Instead of searching deeper and deeper in the half shades of characters' personality and emotional transformation in their travel form the dark to light (Bauregard)and the opposite (Fletcher), Sollima's film goes into cheap posing, trivial scenes, and rather unelaborated plot elements. Tomas Milian is pathetically unsuccessful in his attempt to be something like " The New Man With No Name". Volonte - in spite of his otherwise undoubted talent -does not persuade be it as the silk-gloved professor in the beginning or as the possessed bandit chief at the end. The messages of the movie are too explicitly conveyed instead of leaving more room for the viewers understanding. Moriconne's score this time is easy to be forgotten. What starts intriguingly with a touch of a Shakespearianism, soon proves to be far from the level of its ambitions.
Review of Face to Face
