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The American Civil War has long been fought and won by the Union, but
somewhere deep in the West, a Confederate Colonel, Connor (Albert Farley),
still holds his fort. And since there are no more enemies, he sends his
men to bring him Yari (Mapi Galán), daughter of the local Indian tribe's
chief who's actually his ally. When the chief won't hand her over
voluntarily, Connor's men massacre the entire tribe, only Yari escapes, is
captured and tortured, escapes again, and despite her dire state, she
makes it to Matt's (Vassili Karis) ranch. Matt doesn't like Indians ever
since his wife was killed by them, but he can't let a woman be enslaved
(and that's only the best that can happen to her) for no reason other than
the colour of her skin, either. So the two of them try to make an escape
over the mountains, and in defending themselves against Connor's men, Yari
proves to be quite the fighter, too. She also likes to scalp her enemies,
which turns Matt's stomach, but the two of them fall in love nevertheless. Eventually,
it's Matt who's captured by Connor and company, and Connor personally runs
hooks into his breast and has him pulled through the countryside on them,
in order for his screams of pain to lure Yari out into the open. But
Yari's cunning, so instead of running into a blind suicide attack, she
picks up Connor's men one by one guerrilla style and kills them off, using
nothing but her knife and bow and arrow. So eventually, Connor is left
rather defenseless when Yari runs two arrows into his breast, careful
enough not to kill him, just so he suffers just like Matt, then she lets
Matt handle him. With his dying breath, Connor confesses that it was
actually him who killed Matt's wife, not the Indians - upon which Matt
scalps him, just like Yari would. Over the years, Scalps
has garnered quite a bit of notoriety for its excessive use of violence -
which just can't be ignored - but actually, the film, made at a time when
the Western genre was anything but popular, is an ok, if undoubtedly
violent and flawed, effort. It's ok because it's well-paced, features an
interesting female lead character (something only the fewest Westerns have
ever gotten right), an ok storyline with lots of action, and all the
violence is well-rooted in the story. The film however is far from great,
as apart from the female lead, the characters are all pure genre
clichées, the acting is rather mediocre at best, and the film's scope is
just a little too big for its subject. So no, this is by no means a
classic, but for a Bruno Mattei film at least it's pretty good.
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