God's Gun (1976) User Reviews

spaghetti with way too much cheese

[spider89119 · 5/10 · 4 July 2005]

This is an interesting spaghetti western that could have been done much better, but it was entertaining nevertheless.

First off, let me say that I love cheesy movies. Cheesy movies can be great! In fact, all of the greatest spaghetti westerns are wonderfully cheesy, but, like a great chef, a great director must know how much cheese, and what kind of cheese to use to create a masterpiece. This movie was not up to those standards.

The music score is a mixed bag. The opening theme is great, and very catchy. As for the rest of the score, some parts are good, but other parts sound tacky and fake, kind of like the music they use in porno movies or those awful direct-to-video films.

With the exception of Van Cleef and Palance, the acting isn't that great, but there are a few things about it that are funny. Towards the beginning of the film during the bank robbery, watch for the look on the deputy's face when he gets shot, and notice the way he falls. It's so stupid it's hilarious. An even funnier scene is when a crook who is forced to dress like a priest gets shot in the back by some members of his own gang. He looks like he is doing some funky dance moves while the bullets are hitting him. I had to play that part over again a few times. There are other similar funny parts, but I won't waste time mentioning them all. You've got to see it for yourself. The movie definitely has that "train wreck" sort of appeal. The overall story isn't bad at all, and it kept me interested all the way to the end, in anticipation of the final showdown.

It's a bit hard to accept Lee Van Cleef as a priest, but when he switches to playing the priest's gunfighter twin brother, he is great, and it adds a tiny bit of quality to a movie that desperately needs it. He is especially good during the flashback scenes that show what happened before his brother talked him into leaving town for good. I have read that Van Cleef's voice in this film is dubbed by someone else. There are parts where it doesn't really sound like him, but there are some lines where the voice sounds exactly like him. Jack Palance is hammy and over the top as the main baddie, but this is great! He is very entertaining in this role. It's like what I was saying earlier about knowing what kind of cheese is good, and Jack Palance is very good. During the final showdown, as Palance is Hamming it up wonderfully, and Van Cleef is giving him that steely, confident stare he does so well, I couldn't help wondering how it would have been if any of the three Sergios, or Tonino Valerii had directed a western with these two actors playing adversaries. There's no doubt it would have been one of the great ones.

Even with all of it's faults, the movie is definitely not boring. It manages to be interesting sometimes in spite of itself, and sometimes because of itself. I recommend that all fans of the spaghetti western genre see this movie. Others will probably want to stay away.

OMG! What happen to this Matzoh Ball Western movie! It's God Awful, but interesting.

[ironhorse_iv · 5/10 · 23 August 2013]

Dear God, really, what happen to this movie! It looks like everybody has a really bad sunburn or it's a Western film with Oranges. Everything is so bright. My copy of the film is discolored as hell and what I heard is I'm not the only one. The image quality of the movie is poor. I haven't found a great copy of the film. God's Gun also known as Diamante Lobo and A Bullet from God in some recopies is a Spaghetti-Western that is directed by Gianfranco Parolini or as credited in the American version as Frank Kramer. The movie was filmed in Israel, so this makes this another Matzoh Ball Western starting Spaghetti western legendary actor Lee Van Cleef and 1970's pop star Leif Garett who also started in Joseph Manduke's Kid Vengeance, a year later. Instead of being rivals, in this movie, Leif Garett stars as Johnny, a fatherless kid who takes turn helping run the local church with Father John (Lee Van Cleef) and then the local Saloon, with his mother (Sybil Danning). In a way, both jobs serve a purpose to the plot. It became clear that the theme of the jobs in the film is to show that the boy has to balance his life from serving what's good or entering a life of vice. It's become more a complex conflict for the boy, when a malicious group of bandits enter the town, and start making a scene at the Saloon, leaded by Sam Clayton (Jack Palance). Jack Palance felt like he was challenging his inner evil Jack Nicolson here. Palance is funnier than usual. He is brilliant in the role. He plays the bandit leader very well to the point that I wouldn't wait for the final showdown between Father John and Sam Clayton. Without spoiling too much of the film, both are fighting for the body and soul of the boy, literally. Great story. It illustrates that pacifism is unrealistic, even for Christians. Lee Van Cleef plays double roles in this film as both Father John and his brother Lewis, aka Diamante Lobo. When Father John is shot, his brother, to come north and settle the score. As it turns out, of course, the matter becomes a little more complicated as the gang can't tell the different between the priest and Diamante Lobo. This mysterious spirituous sub-plot gave the movie some deeply needed entertainment. I love how the film makes Diamante Lobo look like somewhat a revengeful fallen angel out to get the gangs for their sinful acts. Diamante Lobo was a bit creepy in this film. I honestly did the hokey 'Ahh' sound whenever Diamante Lobo shown up in the scene to confront an enemy. It's pretty awesome. Reminds me of the sound that came with Man with No Name in Sergio Leone's Dollar Trilogy. I didn't mind the somewhat laughable wig, he was wearing and him talking to himself as another person. I have to say, Richard Boone as the Sheriff is just awful. Richard Boone walked off the film before it was completed leaving his role to be dubbed by another actor that doesn't sound like him. The reason why based by him is because the producer is an Israeli and the director is Italian and deaf, and they both don't speak. The mute thing is kinda silly. In fact, everyone in this film is dubbed by someone else, so it sounds nothing like the actors. The movie is full of action with a death count of 20. I love the over-acting when they get shot. It's full of those one shot kills that is pretty dumb. There is a few good supporting characters. The women are hated objects of lust and the men are just dogs. While, the rape scenes are tame. The movie makes it looks like they were just having fun rather than brutal. It makes it look like you can get away with attempt rape. The editing is pretty bad, as the scenes tend to go way too long, even when there is nothing going on the screen. There is a lots of tilted angles and zooms that wasn't needed. The flashbacks were blurry, and wasn't needed. I did dig the song of the last flashback scene in the movie. The music by Sante Maria Romitelli was pretty good, even if it's sounds like a bunch of hyenas laughing their head off. This is rated R for physical violence, gun violence, strong sexual violence, gore, some profanity, brief female nudity, brief male nudity, and sexual references, but it's pretty tame. Trust me. It's mostly PG-13 in these days, standards. The movie is widely available as a cheap public domain DVD. So it's easy to find in a dollar bin or find on the Internet. An astonishingly so bad, it's good film. Still, worth watching so amen to that.

Much better than expected

[eegah2000 · 6/10 · 3 June 2005]

I bought this DVD for $3 in a bargain bin. I was expecting a horrid movie with an outside shot at "so bad it's funny", but was pleasantly surprised by it.

The plot was actually OK. The idea was good and there were a couple of interesting twists. On the bad side, the movie was poorly made, the style was completely ripped off from the spaghetti westerns, and some of the acting was terrible. Still worth a viewing, though.

I give it a 8/10 for plot, 5/10 for acting and dialogue, and 3/10 for production values. Because the plot is the most important thing (are you listening George Lucas?), I give it an overall rating of 6/10.

Campy & quirky Israeli Western with Lee Van Cleef, Jack Palance, Sybil Danning & Leif Garrett

[Wuchakk · 3/10 · 4 September 2016]

Released in 1976-77, "God's Gun" is a Matzo Ball Western about a preacher (Lee Van Cleef) who chases down a band of outlaws (led by Jack Palance) to apprehend a murderer. After the thugs get revenge the preacher's spiritual son (Leif Garrett) teams-up with the one person who can set things aright. Sybil Danning co-stars as a saloon girl and Richard Boone has a minor role.

This Hebraic Western is stylized with a Spaghetti flavor, but is badly executed. I could never get a grip on the tone the filmmakers were shooting for. Is it semi-camp? Semi-parody? It's obviously not something to take too seriously, but sometimes the viewer's evidently supposed to. Since you can't take the story seriously it prevents you from caring about the events of the story and thus it's boring.

Thankfully, there are some highlights. For one, it was shot in Israel, which is unique for a Western. Secondly, there are a few stunning women, including Sybil Danning when she was around 23 and an uncredited saloon babe named Jessie. Thirdly, it's got Jack Palance and Lee Van Cleef; two Western icons. And, fourthly, Leif Garrett is surprisingly good at around 13 years-old.

But the confused tone and relative dullness do it in.

The film runs 94 minutes.

GRADE: Borderline D+/C- (3.5/10 Stars)

A below average Spaghetti Western with double performance by Lee Van Cleef

[ma-cortes · 4/10 · 28 November 2006]

A preacher (Lee Van Cleef) is gunned down by a cutthroat gang (leading Jack Palance) . The son (Leif Garret) of a Saloon girl (Sybil Danning) is looking for the priest's brother , an ex-gunfighter (again Van Cleef) . The gunman seeks vengeance on the evil men who murdered him . Lee Van Cleef is better in the two first films from ¨Sabata¨ trilogy directed by Frank Kramer or Gianfranco Parolini , (the third was starred by Yul Brynner) than here . These movies are enjoyable , full of gadgets , imagination , with enough budget and produced by Alberto Grimaldi (successful producer of Sergio Leone's Dollars trilogy) , here the producers are Menahem Golan and Yoran Globus (Cannon Productions) but in short budget and being middlingly directed by Gianfranco Parolini or Frank Kramer.

The picture displays action , gun-play , showdown , and drama but badly narrated ; besides , being in minimum budget and wasted casting . The movie has an awful cinematography and disappointing musical score . Jack Palance (recently deceased) as the exaggerated band leader is overacting , as usual , he plays a megalomaniac nasty in an overdone as well as excessive interpretation . There appears Cody Palance , Jack Palance's son (he had another daughter actress named Holly Palance , too) , unhappily , he early died . Richard Boone is underestimated in a minor role , in spite of getting a long career in classic Westerns . The teen singer Leif Garret as a dumb adolescent is mediocre , he played with Lee Van Cleef another spaghetti Western in similar style : ¨Kid vengeance¨ , being his maxim feat the acting as secondary in ¨Outsiders¨ (by Francis Ford Coppola) , later his career really failed . The motion picture was appallingly directed by Gianfranco Parolini who used the pseudonym of Frank Kramer . He began directing muscle-men epics as ¨Rocha¨, ¨The Macabeos¨ with Brad Harris and ¨The ten gladiators¨ with Dan Davis and Gianni Rizzo , Parolini's usual actor . After that , he continued with ¨commissioner X¨ series with Tony Kendall , fantastic genre with ¨Three supermen¨ and warlike movie as ¨5 per l'Inferno¨ with Gianni Garco (Sartana) and Nick Jordan . His first Western was ¨Johnny West¨ and later on , he directed the ¨Sabata trilogy¨ . Rating : Frustating , far fetching and uninspired Western .

Kosher cowboys

[Poison-River · 5/10 · 7 March 2004]

I don't suppose many Westerns were made in Israel, but this seems to be the most famous. It looks like they've gone for the 'Spaghetti Western' look rather than the conventional and so should appeal to those who like those movies. Well....if they can get past the terrible direction, wonky camera-work, and Leif Garrett's acting.

Van Cleef plays a preacher(looking like Satan) who is gunned down in cold blood by Palance's vicious gang. Garrett, who witnesses the event is struck dumb and heads off to Mexico to find Van Cleef's twin brother, a top gunman who vowed to his brother he would never kill with a gun again. Van Cleef heads back to avenge his brother's death, but tries to do so in a manner that doesn't involve shooting them all.

There's clearly a good Western here, but it's lost beneath the ineptitude of the film makers. That said, Van Cleef's twin performance is excellent, and Palance hams(pun not intended) it up like only he can. 5/10

Better than expected 1970's "Saddle Sleaze"

[Steve_Nyland · 7/10 · 4 April 2005]

Now HERE is an odd egg -- a Spaghetti Western filmed in Isreal, with actual acting by Lee Van Cleef (who is usually relegated to the traditional Lee Van Cleef role of the aged wizened gunslinger). GOD'S GUN is a fascinatingly bad film: The production standards of a classic STAR TREK episode, surprisingly lurid & exploitational content, some truly brutal and graphic violence, and Leif Garrett.

But I liked the movie before being even ten minutes into it: It is depraved, amoral, uses the "religious" angle as a plot device, and raises interesting questions about what exactly qualifies a film as a "Spaghetti Western"? For my money the answer comes down to one of style & attitude. Spaghetti Westerns are more like pastiches of moments, some better than others & many culled from other sources, namely other Spaghetti Westerns. It is a re-heatable genre, and GOD'S GUN is a nice dish of leftovers that tastes better on the second day -- It took a couple to realize the film was getting under my skin, that it was interesting, that I hadn't quite seen anything like it before. It is a later period revisionist Euro Western, celebrating the conventions of the genre by presenting them on their sides, upside down or backwards. Quite literally in the form of Lee Van Cleef's performance -- Here is one of the true Gunslingers of the genre, not only putting down his gun & putting on a friar's collar to avenge his brother's murder, but doing so in a way that would be right at home in a Giallo murder mystery.

And then there is the exploitation angle: Up until the impact of Spaghetti's and Peckinpah was felt (1969/1970), Amercian made westerns tended to be bloodless, clean, throw away fun that you could plop 10 to 14 year old boys in front of for a rainy afternoon of riding herd with Doc & Hoppy. Anyone who plops their 12 year old kid down in front of GOD'S GUN deserves a swift kick in the pants: This is a western for GROWN UPS, but not in the arty & intoxicating way that FISTFUL OF DOLLARS was. The effect is more of a freak show, depicting the lurid possibilities of a western in their R-Rated glory as they had never been seen before, complete with an extended gang rape/mass mayhem scene that, once you think about it, is probably more accurate of depicting how these depraved, sex crazed & woman starved animals would behave when presented with a dozen scrumptious, freshly scrubbed saloon girls with names like "Chesty". If anything the cowboys shown raising all that hell aren't grubby & scummy enough. The same can be said for the production design: Everything looks to have been freshly built or decorated for the movie, right down to the painted signs in the town -- They are too damn neat, and look like the handiwork of a production designer rather than some hand-hewn piece of frontier artifice.

Yet in some ways this film shows a remarkable amount of self-awareness: The supporting extras were just actors & actresses, and the director + camera allows them to be so. The only people in the film who "act" are Richard Boone, Sybill Danning and Lee Van Cleef -- Everyone else is an archetype, including Jack Palance's Clayton. Anyone else in the role would have been ridiculous, and my thinking is that he did the film drunk. My favorite touch to the film are the sacks of money that the gang steals at the beginning of the film, which appear to be burlap sacks filled with socks. And unless I am mistaken they all have a big $ dollar sign on them. Like, what the heck??

The point is that the film is being honest about what it is, which is garbage, and those who come off best are the veterans of such garbage like Lee Van Cleef, Sybill Danning, Richard Boone and Palance. They were all aware that they were essentially making trash and made the most of it. Richard Boone gets to drink whiskey, swear, swagger around dressed up like Buffalo Bill and even has a couple of snappy lines: He's awesome, and was a good enough sport to participate because he loved making westerns, and movies in general. Here's some work for you, Mr. Boon -- You get to play the duplicitous, cowardly drunk sheriff in a tumbleweed nowhere we're staging in Isreal. "Where do I sign?"

I like how the film revels in it's "fakeness", with fake cowboys in this fake western town with fake saloon girls in fake saloon girl outfits, and Lee Van Cleef essentially anticipating Obi Wan Kenobi with his non-violent approach to the situation, allowing the fools to kill themselves off, whilst ministering to his young Padewan Leif Skywalker, who sadly regained the use of his voice for a subsequent career as a pop artist -- That his parents/guardians allowed him to appear in films like GOD'S GUN and DEVIL TIMES FIVE is beyond me, and evokes images of McCauly Kulken and Frodo Baggins in THE GOOD SON, another amoral, mean spirited exploitation film with children in central roles. I wonder what the 13 year old girls in love with him who went to see this film in 1976 thought of the gang rape scene, even though he isn't in it.

For what it's worth the images of young Garrett riding an adult-sized horse to the film's imaginatively derivative soundtrack is actually kind of, well, odd. I guess I sort of prefer movies that make me wonder what the heck is going on, and this one IS a riddle wrapped inside of an enigma: what WERE they thinking when they made it? Other than "Thank God for the work", I guess.

Look for this on a four movie/2 disc set called THE GUNSLINGERS in it's uncut 97 minute form. Well worth a look, and Fascinating, Captain.

Shoot Padres and die

[huemannus · 25 March 2007]

Tonight's feature: God's Gun, starring rusty but willing Jack Palance, Lee Van Cleef, really rusty Richard Boone and lil Leif Garrett.

Howdy partner. Tonight's hash house dinner special is a tasty plate of warmed over spaghetti western, prepared with has-been sauce and served with wanna-be bread. For desert we will have menacing grimaces a la Jack Palance and Lee Van Cleef. After dinner mints by Leif Garrett. Drinks by rickety-but game, Richard Boone.

Strap on yer feed bag partner and watch Jack and his blood thirsty gang bring down the wrath of God's Gun when they gun down Padre Lee Van Cleef. Seems the Padre has a gun toting twin brother, also Lee Van Cleef, who doesn't cotton to such dastardly deeds. Along with the charming help of loquacious Leif, lil bud of the dispatched Padre, gun slinging Lee hatches a clever plot to freak out the nasties rather than waste a lot of lead on them.

Instead of swaggering into town, guns ablazing, gun toting Lee dresses up as his bible totin twin brother and magically appears in a swirling mist before the unbelieving eyes of his killers. How kin this be? We done killed him dead already. Seems the ghostly image of the departed Padre unnerved the godless ones and they self destruct one by one until only Jack is left. Kinda figured that all along didn't ya.

Its down to menacing grimace versus menacing grimace now an' who gonna blink first? But wait! What's this about lil Leif bein Jack's unknown kid. Conflict of interest is resolved when gun totin Lee blasts tricky Jack and rides off into the sunset with Leif and Sybil Danning, his saloon gal mom.

Film highlights: hands down best is the flinging away of the bible like a skeet shoot target when the Padre gets bushwhacked…… closely followed by the Padre's prolonged, staggering around, death scene with three or four 30 caliber rifle bullets in him. If those don't get ya then Sheriff Richard Boone's helium-induced squeaky voice-over will.

Not bad at all for a '70s western

[satterwh · 5/10 · 16 February 2002]

The votes seem rather low for this; my guess is that those voting aren't familiar with (or fans of) westerns from the 1960's / 1970's. As they go, this one isn't bad at all.

Lee Van Cleef was excellent; Leif Garrett went from underplaying to overplaying in some scenes, but that was probably what the director was wanting. Jack Palance was the surprise to me; he is usually the epitome of a villain. Here, I thought that the menace was a bit overdone to the point of being lost.

My vote was 5, could have been better, but is quite watchable.

Israeli and Italian Western

[BandSAboutMovies · 6/10 · 11 February 2022]

I had no idea that this Italian Western was an Israeli co-production and just a few years before they'd make it to the USA, Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus would work with The Irwin Yablans Company and Cannon Film Distributors to bring this movie to screens all over the world.

Sam Clayton (Jack Palance, as always, a grinning force of complete menace) and his gang have taken over Juno City, stabbing men and assaulting women before leaving the town in the bloody dust. No man will ride out to stop them, except Father John (Lee Van Cleef), a holy man who rides out unarmed and takes the guilty gang members to jail.

The gang breaks them out of jail and kills the priest, sending a young boy named Johnny (Leif Garrett!) to Mexico to bring Lewis, the twin brother of the dead man of the cloth, and he comes back with vengeance on his mind, even if it turns out that Clayton ends up being Johnny's father.

Also known as Diamante Lobo and A Bullet From God, this is Lee Van Cleef's last filmed Western (and second movie with Garrett). It was a rough film for Richard Boone, who had started having health problems, then got drunk and walked off the set, leaving the Israeli location before he even dubbed his dialogue. He'd say in an interview, "I'm starring in the worst picture ever made. The producer is an Israeli and the director is Italian, and they don't speak. Fortunately it doesn't matter, because the director is deaf in both ears."

That deaf director was Gianfranco Parolini, better known in America as Frank Kramer, and the maker of some wild stuff like Sabata; Yeti: Giant of the 20th Century; Kiss Kiss, Kill Kill; The Three Fantastic Supermen and writing If You Meet Sartana... Pray for Your Death. It was written by John Fonseca, whose career is all over the place, acting in The Uranium Conspiracy (also produced by Golan), serving as a dialogue coach and even shooting stills on the sets of Don't Open Till Christmas and Slaughter High.

How did I get this far without telling you Sybil Danning is in this movie? Am I slipping?

This may not be the best Italian Western you've ever seen, but honestly, the end with Palance rambling in a cemetery and alternating between being paternal and horrifying, well, that's worth the price of this blu ray. And Lee Van Cleef? Always just right.

Production Values Lacking.

[cobram-1 · 3/10 · 9 October 2006]

This could have been a REALLY good and memorable western. What killed this movie, IMHO, were the production values. The Cameraman(men) weren't qualified to take souvenir pictures at Disneyland, the cinematography was BAD, really BAD, jerky shots, too wide an angle, sudden (just got my camcorder) zooms in and out. I wouldn't let the sound-men and Foley "artists" adjust the volume on my AM radio! The sound was HORRIBLE, terribly done. The dubbing even sounded awful, like it was done in public toilet somewhere instead of a sound studio. The sound effects were even worse, watch the scene where the boy is walking out of the church, near the end, when he's walking it sounds just like a horse clopping along, not a human walking. This was a Golan-Globis production, they were known at the time for cutting corners to save money, and it shows in this one. This is really a shame though, because this film has VERY good actors in it (OK some VERY bad ones too.) This movie proves that no matter how good, or how professional the actors are, they alone cannot carry an entire movie. This movie also shows that a good story can be ruined by bad execution. While I am FAR from a movie scholar, I think this movie should be shown to all students interested in film; there is a lot more to be learned from a movie like this than from movies where everything comes together. All in all the movie was watchable, and the most compelling reason I could give anyone for watching it is, that you'll appreciate movies with higher production standards much more than you do now.

Great. yep, great.

[yohumbug · 9/10 · 22 July 2007]

Oh man, what a movie! Where's this hate coming from. It's cheaply done, but hey it was entertaining for what they had to work with. It's got the legendary ever-cool badass Lee Van Cleef... in TWO roles. Yes we were blessed. How can't you not love it?! As for Spagehitti westerns, it might not be a classic. However it has plenty of brutal violence, sleaze and a dirty look. Jack Palance really chews it up as the bad guy. The beautiful Sybil Danning looks great! The score and photography are familiar, but hey who cares when you got these stars on screen. Some things that happen in the story are rather stupid and lacks reasoning, but for me it delivered on the usual goods found in these type of films.

Crazy Dubbing

[jnselko · 6/10 · 10 May 2006]

Actually, this is just a comment. I did not find the movie as bad as ejhutchez, but I did enjoy it. (I am a westerns freak, so that may have had something to do with it). Make no mistake, it is no classic- but it is watchable. Anyways, the point I wanted to make is that the three American stars, all of whom- particularly Jack Palance- have trade mark voices and ways of talking were all poorly dubbed by what seem (or rather sound) to be Italian actors. That just strikes me as really weird. I do agree that the dual roles played by Van Cleef were the best part of the movie by far and that Boone and Palance did indeed seem to be walking through their parts. Still, it's better than a Tom Cruise movie.

Apparently, we are too far away from Spaghetti Westerns...

[mharah · 5/10 · 23 December 2016]

The spaghetti western is/was a very specific genre, and by the standards of the day, they were a huge departure. The first several - A Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More, The Good The Bad and The Ugly, Once Upon a Time in the West, to name a few - all in the unique hands of director Sergio Leone - are classics. Those that came after - including this one, Diamante Lobo (God's Gun) - not so much. The problem starts with the script, which leaves a lot to be desired. In Leone's films, he realized that he was working with a lot of actors for whom, however good they might or might not be, English was not their first language, if in fact they even spoke it at all. So he wisely devised an approach that required very little dialogue, depending mainly on action, atmosphere, style and - yes, violence. A lot of it. In Leone's hands, this combination spoke volumes. When it came to Gianfranco Parolini (aka Fred Kramer), the magic touch just wasn't there. For Diamante Lobo/God's Gun, the script was just awful - clichéd situations, cheesy dialogue, bad continuity. This saddled some of Hollywood's most reliable actors with a difficult assignment - making a silk purse out of a sow's ear. To a great extent, they were constrained by the director, and they fell back, as actors will, on their shtick, to get them through. For some (Sybil Danning, Jack Palance, Leif Garrett), it worked better than others (Lee Van Cleef, Richard Boone). For Van Cleef, the spaghetti western was familiar territory. But playing sort of against type in such familiar surroundings - good an actor as he was - just doesn't ring quite true. Boone, in one of his last films and probably already in poor health, in addition to being miscast, was just plain disappointing. Palance chews up the scenery, as he was wont to do in many films before and after - too broad, and yet it worked. Garrett, one of Hollywood's most promising young actors at the time, hit most of the right notes. Danning - well, she didn't have much to do, but she handled it quite well. The production values were inadequate. The town looked very well turned out for a dusty old stage stop. The post production just made things worse - bad dubbing, in some cases laughable voice replacement, second-rate scoring, editing that worked against the script (although perhaps in spite of it - who knows?). In short, there was a film in there somewhere, but it didn't have a chance to show itself. Two final thoughts: Although Van Cleef was a veteran of the genre, he wasn't the best choice for role(s). Leif Garrett was quite good when allowed to be. Too many reviewers just hate on child actors as a matter of course. And quite a few deserve it. They may be cute, but they are not good. But some are genuinely talented. Garrett was among them until the music thing overtook him. One can only wonder what might have happened had he not gone the teen idol path. As an actor, he sure had the chops.

Gawd's awful

[westerner357 · 1/10 · 9 July 2003]

(aka: GOD'S GUN)

Terrible. Absolutely, terrible...

Lee Van Cleef plays the dual role of a town priest (badly dubbed by someone else) who's killed by Jack Palance's gang, and his bounty hunter brother who comes after Palance for killing his brother.

You'd think that a film with three heavyweights like Lee Van Cleef, Jack Palance and Richard Boone couldn't go wrong, right?

Guess again...

These guys don't even dub their own voices in. The dubbed voices sound like a bunch of kids 20 or 30 years younger than the actors themselves. If you can believe it. Geez...

Plus, the whole thing looks like it was filmed in one of those tourist western towns and the extras were hired merely to take up space. The acting is atrocious, the script is awful and the gunplay looks like a bunch of kids playing with cap pistols.

A Golan-Globus production filmed in Israel, this has all the appeal of a stale matzo ball.

For the truly hard-up.

1 out of 10

God is a Spaghetti-Cowboy!

[Coventry · 5/10 · 17 May 2007]

The indescribably poor DVD-quality almost ruined the entire movie for me. "God's Gun" is part of a Three-Pack DVD of Lee Van Cleef spaghetti western films, the other two being "Kid Vengeance" and "Death Rides a Horse". The box looks nice and it's a great initiative to release more of Van Cleef's work on DVD, but the picture and sound quality are terribly, terribly poor! The colors are faded and most of the time you can't even make out the eyes or the expressions on the characters' faces. It's far worse than a VHS which stood on the bottom shelf of a videostore for the past 20 years, so watch out in case you consider purchasing this puppy on DVD. The film itself is fine, and I don't really understand all the harsh and negative comments by the other reviewers. The plot isn't exactly original and the film clearly lacks the touch of a professional genre director like Leone or Corbucci, but as long as you're simply expecting to see macho cowboys wiping each other out with pistols and shotguns, you can't possibly be disappointed. Any western that combines the talents and charisma of Lee Van Cleef and Jack Palance is worth tracking down if you ask me, and even more so if it also contains guest appearances by Richard Boone and Sybil Danning. Van Cleef plays the priest of a peaceful little town that suddenly gets invaded by a sadistic gang of criminals led by Jack Palance. The priest is killed when he tries to uphold justice in the little town, but his youthful acolyte escapes and seeks the help of twin-brother Lewis who lives in Mexico. Together they return to avenge Father John's dead and clear the town of crime once and for all. The script of "God's Gun" is very clichéd and contains too many stupid improbabilities. For example, Johnny finds Lewis in less than two days even though he only knew he lived "somewhere in Mexico" and – moreover – he can't even ask for directions because he's struck mute. For some reason, there are also two totally redundant and overlong flashback sequences that don't add anything to the story. Naturally, the cast of characters are dreadful stereotypes, including the drunkard Sheriff and the gorgeous, voluptuous wenches in the local saloon. The music and many of the inventive camera angles are directly stolen from "The Good, The Bad and The Ugly". Oh well, at least the gunfights are violent & nasty, and Jack Palance is the ultimately cool baddie.

Oy!

[alansmithee04 · 3/10 · 5 August 2004]

An early Golan-Globus effort to jump on the by then already exhausted "Spaghetti Western" bandwagon, God's Gun packs all the punch of a wet sponge. In the first reel, Van Cleef's gunshy "Father John" character gets bushwacked by Jack Palance's gang of Wild West Italians and shot about a gazillion times, prompting Leif Garrett to go wandering around the Negev until he finds the dead padre's gunslinger brother "Lewis" (also Van Cleef.)

This leads to a couple of rather silly flashbacks and a long series of scenes ripped off from much better spaghetti westerns. But, believe it or not, there are a few good things about the movie. Leif Garrett is struck dumb for most of the film, thus sparing us from actually having to listen to him. Palance overacts so egregiously he nearly becomes a cartoon, which is kind of fun to watch. The always reliable Richard Boone shows up for about three scenes as the cowardly town sheriff and the always lovely Sybil Danning plays Garret's mom, the owner of the town saloon / cathouse.

Does this make God's Gun worth watching? Well, it's better than being dipped in honey and staked out on an anthill. But only just.

Double the Van Cleef!

[DasBobsWorld · 7/10 · 24 January 2019]

I had this recommended to me a very long time ago when I was first starting to get into and review westerns. It has taken this long because the genre still hasn't endeared itself to me for the most part, and I watch them sparsely. Still, I have been going through this western pack of late and the middle entry on it is God's Gun. A western done by Golan and Globus before their Cannon days I am assuming. This meant that the movie is goofy fun at times, and kind of stood out from the other spaghetti westerns I have seen in a good way. Well good for my sensibilities.

God's Gun is about estranged twin brothers, one a priest and the other a gambling shoot first style gunfighter, both played by Lee Van Cleef. When the priest is killed, a young boy from the town journey's to find the brother and get revenge. Sound pretty normal except that for a small amount of the time the gun fighting brother plays it of like he is the specter of the priest to scare and kill the gang that outnumbers him. Those parts were great. In fact, although the movie takes a long time to get set up, the payoff is totally worth it.

It wasn't all great though. As I mentioned, the movie takes its time getting going. It seemed to prefer introducing all the characters in long scenes, drawing out everything until the priest is killed. Jack Palance kind of got on my nerves as well. Although it was funny to see his villainous character slap and laugh his way through everything, he seemed more like a joke than anything else. He acted like a drunken fool and laughed at everything that happened. But, for me at least, the laugh looked so fake and weird...I don't know, maybe Palance just weirds me out. Also, there is a scene where the gang goes into the bar, after stealing two young girls and proceeds to have a sexual assault party that went on way too long. It was off-putting.

Still, flaws aside, I did like this movie. It did feel a bit cheap and fun, while also feeling a bit sleazy at times. The basic premise and Van Cleef's characters make it worth recommending.

Far from a great movie.

[ejhutchaz · 1/10 · 21 November 2005]

I recently saw this movie on a cable western channel, and I thought it would be great as it had Lee Van Cleef, Jack Palance, and Richard Boone together, all three who had made some great westerns. It also had a good premise: A retired gunfighter returns to find the killer of his brother, a priest, and avenge his death . I got some popcorn, settled in and watched it, and couldn't believe what I was seeing. This one should not only be in the top ten list of the 100 WORST movies ever made, it should be number one. It was so bad I had to watch it to the finish to see if it could possibly get worse. I've seen fifth graders do better acting. Jack Palance seemed like he either didn't know what his lines were, or was wondering how he had got into this mess. It certainly wasn't up to Shane, or City Slickers quality. Richard Boone must have been at a low point of his career and needed the money for the few short disappointing scenes he was in. Either his great sounding voice was shot and he was poorly dubbed, or he couldn't remember his lines and was poorly dubbed. In any event his performance was worse than "The Last Dinosaur", which he did after this one, in his normal voice. The only halfway credible performance was turned in by Lee Van Cleef, as both the priest and gunfighter brother. He really didn't have to do much to top the other two. The budget for this must have been really low as they used the same outdoor street to depict two different towns! All they did was cover over the name on the town sign and move some wagons, barrels and boxes around. All in all this was a big disappointment, and I couldn't recommend this film other than to a film study class as an example of how-not-to-make-a-movie.

MUCH better than other reviews would lead you to believe

[cableaddict · 6/10 · 22 November 2005]

I just saw this flick on late-night cable. Never heard of it before, but was stunned at how well-done it was. Then I came here to the IMD and was absolutely stunned by all the bad reviews.

I have a theory: there must be two versions of this movie. Seriously.

A recent American reviewer complained that all three main actors' voices were dubbed by actors 20 years younger. HUH? In the version I just saw, All three spoke in their own voices. In fact, the words seem to be English, so any dubbing would have been for a foreign release. Perhaps a foreign version got RE- dubbed into English?

-That might also account for another reviewer complaining that Van Cleef overacted. In the version I saw, Van Cleef gives a fantastic performance. (Although he was not the best choice, IMO, for the lead.)

Overall, I consider this movie to be at the bottom of the top-tier of spaghetti westerns. (that's a compliment, not a knock.) OK, there's no Clint. However, the story is solid and complex. The acting is fine. The cinematography is as good as any Sergio film. The music sounds exactly like Morricone (could even BE Morricone, there are no scoring credits on the IMD) The editing is crisp.

I believe that some reviewers found out this was shot in Israel, and then viewed it looking for faults. Shame on you people! (no, I'm not Jewish, I'm just offended by the extremely off-base reviews.)

This is a solid, well-made, good-looking film. It's one true fault is that Lee Van Cleef isn't really suited to being a leading-man. With a better lead, this could have been a classic.

A serious contender for the strangest western ever made

[TheLittleSongbird · 4/10 · 23 February 2015]

Unfortunately for God's Gun that is not meant in a good way. God's Gun is not an awful film but at best it's mediocre, with talented people on board and some great ideas on paper it could have been a good film but the potential is not properly used.

God's Gun has its merits with the film having some gorgeous scenery and well-tailored costumes(Lee Van Cleef's wig is just atrocious though). The music score is derivative of Ennio Morricone somewhat but it's a clever, atmospheric one that suits the film well. A few performances are decent, the best being from a charismatic and intensely steely Lee Van Cleef in a double role. Sybil Danning doesn't have much to do but she does bring compassion and heart to her character and to the film. Apart from acting like he was drunk in the final scene, Jack Palance is an entertaining villain, he does bring a menace to the role but an enjoyable hamminess too.

Most of the acting however is very weak. Leif Garrett's Johnny really fails to engage, in some scenes he overdoes it and in others he appears completely disengaged, while the secondary and extra roles look under-rehearsed. But in the acting stakes the biggest disappointment was the complete waste of Richard Boone, his character is barely in the film and Boone sleepwalks his way through it. The amateurish dubbing doesn't help, for most of the actors dubbed the voices do not fit the actors or the characters, the worst offenders being for Boone and in the church scene towards the end, it's even out of sync with the mouth movements and in a sloppy way. Nor do the uninteresting caricatures that passes for characters(only Van Cleef's vengeful brother character intrigues a little) or the stilted script which also has a lot of padding and corny melodrama. There were some great ideas in God's Gun but not much interesting is done with them in the storytelling, a lot of it having a muddled and trying-to-do-too-much effect, with an embarrassingly overwrought ending and overlong, unneeded and overdone rape scenes(especially the one in the saloon). God's Gun is stodgily paced and apart from the scenery it does look as though it was made on the cheap, the camera work was distractingly bad with jerky movements and shots that are too wide and too long in places, at its worst at the end which was enough to make one sea-sick.

Overall, not awful but strange and rather mediocre. 4/10 Bethany Cox

My favourite western

[theking-51286 · 10/10 · 14 July 2022]

Leif Garrett was incredible in this film, just as he was in "Kid Vengeance" and "Peter Lundy & the Medicine Hat Stallion". Lee Van Cleef, in his final western, is great as both brothers. Sadly Richard Boone looked terrible and hardly appeared in the film. It's a shame they did not film more westerns in Israel.

Lee Van Cleef Times Two

[FightingWesterner · 7/10 · 12 November 2009]

Priest Lee Van Cleef stands up to Jack Palance and his vicious outlaw gang, only to be promptly murdered. This sends young Leif Garrett on a search to find the father's twin (also Van Cleef) who puts on his brother's collar and proceeds to give the outlaws a serious case of the willies!

A low-budget Isreali backed spaghetti western, this re-teaming of Van Cleef with his Sabata director "Frank Kramer" is pretty good fun despite the derision of others who snicker at the casting of Leif Garrett. He was actually a decent kid actor before the silly overblown teen-idol hoopla.

Van Cleef, Palance, and the ravishing Sybil Danning are all great and keep things pretty lively throughout, even if things get a bit amateurish and corny at times.

However, Richard Boone is sadly wasted on a half-formed sheriff character, dubbed by another actor!

Absolutely hilarious!

[vulpine-7 · 2/10 · 30 May 2009]

Jack Palance plays his stereotypical Heavy role with all the silliness that entails. I don't blame him, I blame the director and the producers for trying to capitalize on the Clint Eastwood spaghetti western genre. Terrible writing and even worse directing make this one of the funniest 'comedies' I ever watched; there's no way this could be seen as a serious movie. Lee Van Cleef does a good job with his role and even Richard Boone does a fair job of playing an aging, terrorized Sheriff. I have to ask, Why? Well, my guess is that the producers thought that having three big names in American western movies would guarantee a box office hit. Honestly, I think all three were flat embarrassed by the film.

Wow! I thought , when I saw who was in it. End of Wow!

[slayer-3 · 2/10 · 9 December 2008]

Lee Van Cleef, Jack Palance, Richard Boone. How could this movie miss. It missed and it missed Big Time. Bad production, Bad Direction, Hilariously Bad acting. Richard Boone was dubbed. Not sure if Lee Van Cleef was dubbed. Bad Cinematography. It is night no then it is day. it is cloudy then it is not. Who camps in the middle of a road?

We are told that Lewis (a major character) is in Mexico. Does the Director,producer, anybody else involved in this production know how big Mexico is? We are then led to believe a kid will find this Lewis person in 2 days. The kid just happens to ride to the correct town on the 1st try. And on it goes.

I need to mention Bad camera work, oh I mentioned that. It is worth mentioning again, Bad camera work. Oh and bad directing. Wrong score for this film. Two pieces matched, the rest belonged in some other type of movie, not a western. The director should be shot!