A Reason to Live, a Reason to Die (1972) (2024)

Popular reviews

• Review by mosquitodragon ★★★★ 6

  "Gentlemen, I can promise you nothing, except a chance to die honorably, and possibly live. In any case, freedom at the end."

  Absolute no-brainer for me. Spaghetti western. Guys on a mission. Crew of cut-throat scumbags. Fraught heist caper. Insane bullet-riddled battles in massive desert fort locations to die for (literally, as hundreds of extras bite the dust). And lording over it all we have James Coburn doing his effortless thing, Bud Spencer being one of the coolest sidekicks ever and evil Telly Savalas chewing up the magnificently arid Spanish countryside. What more could I possibly ask for?

  Total joy. Badly under-rated, IMO, and definitely underseen.

• Review by sakana1 ★★★½ 3

  Spoilers ahead.

  A doomed quest film with significant similarities to both The Dirty Dozen and KIll Them All and Come Back Alone, Tonino Valerii's A Reason to Live, a Reason to Die also offers a sneaky rumination on revenge, between the bullets and explosions.

  Originally, the film was intended to be much darker, centered on a Confederate soldier and a deaf-mute tramp who attaches himself to the man in the hope of finding a better life. Ending in suicide and hopelessness, the story's grimness, particularly in a cinematic terrain dominated by comedies, terrified Cidif, the film's Italian distributor, so major changes were made, with a focus on lightening the tale.

  Though the story is fundamentally still a grim one, the…

• Review by Kevin Majestyck

  Between Leone’s DUCK, YOU SUCKER and Peckinpah’s PAT GARRETT & BILLY THE KID, James Coburn starred in this Civil War “men on a mission” variant. Based on the title and intentional marketing — Coburn holding dynamite — you might think these reprobates slowly believe in their cause like Leone’s film. No, it’s mostly greed (with a revenge angle emerging). As a heist film, it’s not very clever or complicated, either.

  Like THE DIRTY DOZEN, these condemned men are given an ultimatum: assist a disgraced colonel (James Coburn) in taking back a fort he surrendered previously, or hang. The obvious question of why this crew doesn’t just kill Coburn and split once they’re on the trail, is answered by the pretence they…

• Review by Michael501 📺 ★★½

  1972 In Review - October
  #9

  Branded a coward for surrendering his New Mexico fort to the Confederates without firing a shot, a Union colonel attempts to redeem himself by leading a band of condemned prisoners on a suicide mission to recapture it.
  
  A Reason to Live, A Reason to Die is a United States Civil War swipe of "The Dirty Dozen", done in the Clint Eastwood "spaghetti western" style. James Coburn leads a less than star-studded group of seven desperadoes. (Still pre-Kojak) Telly Savalas, who appeared as one of the original "Dozen", is Mr. Coburn's major foil.
  The film is only worth watching for James Coburn. Telly Savalas and of course the great Bud Spencer.

• Review by RanchoTuVu ★★★★

  This Civil War era spaghetti western is set somewhere out there in the barren west. James Coburn leads a squad of condemned men to overthrow a Confederate fort commanded by Telly Savalas with an elaborate security system because Savalas is just waiting and fearing the day Coburn shows up. Accompanying Coburn is Bud Spencer, who brings some levity but mostly this is pretty heavy. Very deliberately set up by the director Tonino Valerii who seemed to want to capture the tension of each step of the men as they scale the walls and set up their explosives, rather than just taking everything for granted as if there were no nagging snags in an operation like this. The heart of it all is the Coburn-Savalas backstory and the insane amount of explosives. The soundtrack by Riz Ortolani features that single note style from an electric guitar that makes the mood kind of existential.

• Review by Stefano Monteforte ★★

  Tonino Valerii, who'd served as an assistant for years to the likes of Margheriti, Mastrocinque, and Leone, would go on to direct movies himself, mostly spaghetti westerns like this 1972 effort. Besides the unlikely pair up of James Coburn (Our Man Flint, Duck You Sucker!) and Bud Spencer (They Call Me Trinity, God Forgives...I Don't!) as a disgraced Union colonel and condemned looter, respectively, there's the miscasting of Greek New Yawkuh Telly Savalas (Horror Express, Lisa and the Devil) as Confederate Major Ward, who's seized Fort Holman from the Union army with designs on controlling the region's commerce once the war has ended. "It's bonus time, baby!" not an oft-heard Southern turn of phrase, methinks. Coburn's Col. Pembroke, who'd surrendered unconditionally to Ward, gathers a gaggle of condemned no good fellers to help him recapture the base, on the promise of buried gold. Familiar "infiltrator" storyline, with fewer moments of excitement to note than women in the cast. Nothing thrilling.

• Review by waiyanaung ★★★

  Part of My 100 Euro Westerns

  Accused of being a coward and traitor, union officer colonel Pembroke (James Coburn) has decided to recapture the Fort Holman that he previously surrendered without a shot fired. Having arranged liberty for a group of prisoners he managed to get some manpower from rapists, murderers, thieves and religious fanatic, all of who initially refused the request but after offering them a piece of gold that are buried inside the fort all the men had set out on the journey but standing in their way are ruthless Commander of the Fort, Major Ward (Telly Savalas) and impenetrable, elaborated sets of security systems that they must get passed.

  Tonino Valerii who started out as assistant to…

• Review by Jeremy Milks ★★★

  A Bud Spencer/James Coburn team-up is an easy sell, and for the most part it works. Very similar in set-up to The Dirty Dozen, Coburn is a disgraced general who has to save face by leading a group of condemned criminals on a suicide mission to retake a fort from the Confederate Army. Spencer shines the brightest here with a typically funny performance although don't go in expecting a buddy film like Spencer did with Terence Hill. This has a fairly serious tone that builds to a huge action set-piece towards the end. Coburn delivers a toned down performance, which hurts the film a little, as do some stretches where the pacing falls off. There's still lots to like but I wouldn't consider it an upper tier Italian Western. It fits comfortably into the middle range, but watching guys like Spencer, Coburn and Telly Savalas (as the villain) is a good enough reason to seek it out.

• Review by Mark Cunliffe 🇵🇸 ★★★½

  Released by the SignalOne Blu-ray label this week, Tonino Valerii's 1972 film A Reason to Live, a Reason to Die is a men on a mission war movie masquerading as a Spaghetti Western - a conceit that works because Italian filmmakers knew that Nazis and the Confederacy were interchangeable. Unlike Hollywood, there's no honourable doomed lost cause sentiment relating to the Confederates in Spaghetti Westerns; fascists are fascists.

  Borrowing liberally from The Dirty Dozen (though its not the first Spaghetti to do so; 1968's Kill Them All and Come Back Alone takes that prize) and Where Eagles Dare, the film sees James Coburn's disgraced Union officer save a group of condemned men, including Bud Spencer, from the gallows to go…

• Review by PacificNil ★★★★ 2

  "Sie verkaufen den Tod" erschien 1981 in einer Comedysynchronisation nach einer ernsten aus den Siebzigern erneut in den Kinos. Gesehen habe ich diesmal die neueste Synchronisation, die fürs Fernsehen um 1990 entstanden ist, nachdem ich die Erstsynchronisation vor 5 Jahren, nach dem Tod Bud Spencers, im Kino genießen durfte. Im Kino kann der Film mehr Kraft entfalten als auf dem heimischen Bildschirm, was überwiegend der Farbgebung geschuldet ist; trotzdem ist er ein Highlight der ernsteren Filme Spencers, der hier mit mehr Körperlichkeit, die sich nicht nur auf den Dampfhammer beschränkt, spielt. Dramaturgisch folgt der Film "Das dreckige Dutzend" (Aldrich 1967), wobei der Part um Ausbildung und Training übersprungen wird. Aus dem Schatten des großen Vorbildes tritt der Film nur selten, dennoch begeistern atmosphärisch dichte Set-Pieces, wie der Beginn des Films um Plünderer, eine immer näher rückende feindliche Armee und im getragenen Theaterton gesprochene Dialoge.

• Review by porksweats ★★★½

  you know what I enjoyed this very much, bud spencer was great here and it's just a shame we didn't get telly savalas earlier on

• Review by Filipe Furtado ★★★½

  A man on a mission Eurowestern directed by Tonino Valerii. James Coburn is a disgraced Union officer that needs to retake a fort with a group of inmates. So it is The Dirty Dozen in the civil war, with the confederacy as the nazis. This has little of the baroque excess one might expect, but plenty of violence and nastiness. One has to love an Italian movie because where else we get the exchange: “stop shooting they are surrendering” “go fuck themselves”, more machine gun action. The general moral is less the mission offers some shape for some anti-social types, as war makes savages of everyone. Coburn is fine, and most of the guys in his group are distinct presences. There are some slow passages in the big trip there and sometimes Valerii seems to contrive to patch over it, but there’s lots of mayhem and some impressive death hunted images. The big finale is great.