Spaghetti Westerns have provided me with some of the most enjoyable times possible. Their tropes and ingenuity in the face of an otherwise repetitive few storylines makes for consistently comfortable and thoroughly enjoyable viewing. If You Meet Sartana Pray for Your Death was not a film I had heard of at all until I picked up the Arrow boxset in their most recent sale. Blind buying is something I relish in, so to have five spaghetti westerns to dive into is a real treat. Each come right from the high point of the Spaghetti Western wave, the late 60s and early 70s provide us with recognisable faces, gorgeous set designs and incredibly memorable characters. Thankfully, Sartana is fast becoming one of them.
It’s perplexing to see just how much If You Meet Sartana Pray for Your Death steals from For a Few Dollars More and the other entries into the Eastwood trilogy. Exceptional copycat work is on display throughout, and to be quite honest it’s hard not to enjoy. The Eastwood-like persona of Gianni Garko’s Sartana is unavoidable. A man of few words, equipped with a pocket watch, squared revolver and Winchester rifle, silently brooding his way through towns not build big enough for both he and the villainous Lasky (William Berger). The inevitable toying of the villain, the damsel in distress and the side-antagonists all make the rounds in relatively engaging moments throughout the Gianfranco Parolini directed piece.
Garko’s lead performance is tremendous, a confident portrayal of a cowboy in the West. He’s up to scratch with the likes of those he wishes to replicate. Engaging actions sequences and a great deal of chemistry between Garko and Parolini leads to some extremely rewarding results. If You Meet Sartana Pray for Your Death is one of the few westerns I’ve seen where there is extremely limited downtime for storytelling or plot exposition. Most of those scenes are done with incredibly tense undertones or with a gun in hand, a very nice mix that keeps the pace of the movie trundling along in a rather respectful fashion.
The first entry into the Sartana series is a certainly strong beginning. It hits right at the heart of your expected western genre ideals, but has a lot of fun in doing so. Garko’s leading performance carries us through some slightly forgettable storytelling and some severely impressive action setpieces. The lack of storytelling variety and copycat methods can be easily forgiven after watching Garko troop on through the old west, shooting everything and everyone that so much as breathes at him in a less than respectable way. If You Meet Sartana Pray for Your Death is incredibly fun, filled with engaging action and a strangely well-rounded lead character, something I really wasn’t expecting from a film that looks to copy other, more popular films in the genre.
