This is an unashamed reworking of the Sergio Leone classic, Il buono, il brutto, il cattivo, or if you like, The good, the bad and the ugly. It's set in Germany at the end of the second world war, and like the spaghetti western, the film starts with one of the main protagonists being hanged, though in this case it's the good, and not the ugly. The ugly is quite literally the commander of the SS troops that are looking for Jewish gold in a small German town. He's ugly because he is SS. But also because he is disfigured, presumably as a result of the war. The film also borrows a classic scene from the western; a gave is unearthed, only to find that it does not contain any gold. The score has some heavy nods to Ennio Morricone, though the Mac the Knife bit towards the end was weird, maybe its a German thing. As to the bad, they are clearly the town's folk. Suffice to say that at the end, the bad and the ugly are all dead, and the good gets his gold, but not the Au type of gold. It made me cry.
Review of Blood & Gold
