Buddy Goes West

Storyline

Buddy Goes West, Two outlaws: “The doctor” (Bud Spencer) and the Indian Girolamo (Amidou) are helping villagers to fight a gang and a corrupt sheriff who has discovered gold under the village.

Some great gags, a superb soundtrack and one very irritating sidekick

Buddy Goes West, Bud Spencer wanders into a small town, gets mistaken for a doctor and winds up protecting the town folk from a gang of thugs and a corrupt sheriff.

Both Spencer and director Michele Lupo have done better, separately and together. But that is not to say that Buddy Goes West is a bad film. It has a couple of great gags and enjoyable moments (the food duel between Spencer and the sheriff is great fun) and the soundtrack by Ennio Morricone is absolutely superb (if only for the music, this late spaghetti western should be of interest for fans of the genre).

Now for the bad: I can watch Spencer do his grumpy comic persona in almost anything, to be perfectly honest, but when he’s not with Terence Hill he sometimes falls back on irritating sidekicks (see also Jerry Calà in Bomber, made one year later). And in that respect, Buddy Goes West takes the cake. Morrocon actor Amidou (Sorcerer) plays a dim witted Indian who hops around like an idiot and mimics Native American speak by uttering words like ‘Witchita’ and ‘Dakota’ and plain old mumbo-jumbo. Of course it’s politically incorrect, but I don’t mind that. What I do mind is that Amidou is really tiresome in the role and not funny at all. I try to imagine Buddy Goes West with a less moronic sidekick. It would have been much better.

Buffalo Bill