Thursday, September 26, 2019

THE MOMENT TO KILL (1968) * ½

Bounty hunter Lord (George Hilton) and his buddy Bull (Walter Barnes) get a job to track down a cache of Confederate gold.  Along the way, they wind up helping a wheelchair bound woman fend off some unsavory desperados.  Mistrust, backstabbing, and double crosses eventually follow. 

Directed by Giuliano (The Case of the Bloody Iris) Carnimeo, The Moment to Kill is a slow moving and dreary little heaping of Spaghetti Western.  It takes forever to get going, and the listless pacing and lethargic direction perpetually keep it from gaining any momentum.  Not even Hilton’s solid performance can keep it afloat.  His Mutt and Jeff routine with Barnes makes the film sometimes play like a Terence Hill/Bud Spencer movie, minus the laughs.

The Moment to Kill really only comes to life in the third act.  Then at least the sound of whizzing bullets can keep you from dozing off.  The shootout where Hilton hides behind sides of beef while shooting at the bad guys is kind of cool, I guess.  My favorite part though is when he ran out of bullets and resorted to throwing his spurs at his enemies like Ninja stars.  Too bad the constant plot twists pile on so fast in the end that it kind of gets in the way of the action.

Hilton and Carnimeo later teamed up for Sartana’s Here… Trade Your Pistol for a Coffin.

AKA:  The Moment of Killing.

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