Terence Hill

  • Lo chiamavano Trinità… [They call me Trinity] (1970)

    Lo chiamavano Trinità… [They call me Trinity] (1970)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (YouTube Streaming, August 2020) Ah-ha! If you’re looking for the film that really ignited the career of the Bud Spencer/Terence Hill duo, look further than They Call Me Trinity. The success of God Forgives… I Don’t immediately led to a bigger-budgeted follow-up, more closely tailored to their specific skills than anything else. Accordingly, it made money, got good reviews and left a lasting legacy: Not only a (worse) sequel, but an affirmation that the Spencer/Hill duo was good for box office success—indeed, I can find a few reviews simply calling the duo, “The Trinity Brothers.” It’s easy to see why the film was a success: taking the spaghetti western formula but ensuring that it was accessible to all ages, this is a film that plays to packed houses with a blend of action and comedy. Spencer is easy to like—the teddy-bear act is a lot of fun, while Hill has the Cary Grantesque quality of being uncommonly good-looking while also being willing to plunge into whatever’s needed to get a laugh. Combined with writer-director Enzo Barboni’s intention to tone down the violence of the spaghetti western in order to make it even more broadly accessible, well, this is a film that the whole family will enjoy. Call Me Trinity is also, perhaps, the best of their collaboration—the one to highlight when introducing the duo to new audiences.

  • Non c’è due senza quattro [Double Trouble] (1984)

    Non c’è due senza quattro [Double Trouble] (1984)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, July 2020) By 1984, the long on-screen partnership between Bud Spencer and Terence Hill was almost over, but both of them were comfortable enough in their on-screen personas that their movies became little more than excuses for comic set-pieces. In Double Trouble’s case, the narrative goes back to the favourite comic trope of doubles—Spencer/Hill playing both rich wimpy characters, and rough-and-tumble doubles hired as decoys due to assassination attempts. It all takes place in Rio de Janeiro for international flavour. The excuse for a plot is enough for the string of gags—both actors are clearly having fun with the highfalutin dialogue and demeanour of the rich guys they’re supposed to replace, and a lot of the film’s comedy has to do with class differences. It’s certainly nothing sophisticated, but the brawls are fun, and fans of the duo get exactly what they’re expecting. While Double Trouble is not their best (although, really, what is their best?), it’s amusing enough to be worth their names on the marquee.

  • Nati con la camicia [Go for It] (1983)

    Nati con la camicia [Go for It] (1983)

    ByChristian Sauvé Movie Review

    (In French, On Cable TV, July 2020) Since Bud Spencer and Terence Hill comedies were a staple of French-Canadian TV when I was a kid, I must have seen Go for It as a boy—and not knowing that this would be one of the last screen appearances for the duo. It is, at least, one of the bigger-budgeted of their films: enough for the Italian production crew to shoot it in Sunny Miami (although there are mountains at some point… in Florida), and for the plot (in which two not-so-respectable men are mistaken for secret agents) to string along a series of large-scale physical gags. Conceptually, some of the stuff is funny—but it’s not quite executed well enough to be even remotely plausible. (A trailer-tractor sequence, in particular, is even more inept than the rest.) As a spy film parody of sorts, Go for It takes a while to get going and it doesn’t end on much of a high note. Fortunately, Spencer and Hill have charm and a good comic rapport… but it’s not enough to overcome an air of facility and over-familiarity with the proceedings. Go for it ends up being a thoroughly mixed bag: funny in spots, implausible most of the time, and a bit cheap for the rest of it.