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The Worst Film Ever

Admirable film.

The acting is good, and the firecracker script has some excellent ideas.

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

BLACK JACK is a dark, dark example of the spaghetti western, replacing the usual light comedy found in these films with an almost vicious streak of violence which, while not explicit, still hits the mark. No doubt it was made as a result of DJANGO and the writer's efforts to go one step further in delivering a nihilistic storyline.Robert Woods plays an effective character as the leader of a group of thieves pulling off a big robbery. All goes according to plan, until the inevitable 'thieves fall out' aftermath, in which he's betrayed and left for dead by the bad guys, who also rape, murder, and scalp (!) his sister for good measure. Woods survives, albeit in a crippled form, and goes on a mission of vengeance against his former allies, tackling them one at a time.It's a simplistic plot but one that supports a film with a good visual style, including touches of Poe, no less, here and there, especially at the Roger Corman/Poe cycle inspired climax. The violent scenes are well directed and Woods plays a memorable character, dressed all in black and limping difficultly across the screen. BLACK JACK isn't what I'd call a classic, but spaghetti western fans are well advised to seek it out.

I have found that spaghetti westerns that chose to film in Israel instead of the usual stomping grounds of Spain tend to have some very interesting touches to them even if they don't work overall. But "Black Jack" is one example that works very well for the most part. It is an incredibly dark and bleak spaghetti western in many aspects, not just with the amoral bad guys, but also with a "hero" who doesn't seem to be any better than the men he hunts down in a quest for revenge. The scenes of revenge are very memorable, having violence and brutality that will make viewers wince at least a little. Even when the movie is not showcasing violence or revenge, the atmosphere is dripping with dread, in part due to the dusty and haunting Israeli desert backdrop. Robert Woods acts appropriately mean-spirited for the most part, though he does overact a few times when his character gets into a bout of insane laughter. Another quibble is that the movie takes a long time (almost half of the running time, as a matter of fact) to set everything up before Woods starts on his path of vengeance. And the pacing does remain kind of slow at times in the second half of the movie. Also, it's not made clear how Woods' character manages to track down his former criminal partners. But those minor shortcomings should not prevent spaghetti western fans from enjoying this western. Though considering the REALLY harsh tone of the movie, maybe I should pick a better word than "enjoying".(Note: Watch the movie on YouTube instead of DVD, because as one other IMDb user pointed out earlier, the ending on the DVD has been edited in a way to be pretty incomprehensible.)

Black Jack 1968 starring Robert Woods was a fascinating SW and I agree with other posters it belongs on a top 20 list. I saw a full screen DVD copy of it with the edited ending and then saw on youtube the unedited ending. If you watch the edited version you will say "WTF" at the ending and then feel cheated like when you order fast food after seeing a commercial showing a hug full hamburger then you go in the drive thru and its half the size like that lol. Okay back to the flick... I like this movie because there is no hero only a bad guy, who gets wronged by his crew because he is greedy and double crosses them only to get hunted down and those closest to him gets hurt and murdered being left for dead Black Jack sets out for revenge badly maimed and is half crazed. It really is a great revenge flick and with amazing ending. Robert Woods really has grown on me since seeing My name is Pecos and Black Jack he is really a great character actor for the genre. The directing was great even though Baldenello is considered not a very good director but he did impress me with this one.

Gianfranco Baldinelli's Italian western Black Jack (1968) is hauntingly dark and violent tale of a bank robbery and revenge. A bunch of thieves rob a bank but feel their leader / mastermind Jack divides the money for his own good. This results some sudden bursts of violence and torture as their ways apart, leaving Jack to wait for his payback time. The premise is quite good, as the theme of vengeance has often been exploited in (these) films, making it look something much safer and more positive than it actually is. Margheriti's film Vengeance is interesting but never manages to express anything worthwhile about revenge and its possible results. Hossein's Cemetery Without Crosses has a great potential and characters, but ends up in rather typical and unsatisfying ending, albeit the film being very interesting visually (scripted by Dario Argento).Black Jack has several intense and disturbing moments, and the storytelling is very effective, making the 90 minutes pass incredibly fast. There are some segments of fantastic photography in the desert, some poetic images of irreversible violence (mostly the thickening flame on front of the picture) which all make the film little closer to the masterpiece of spaghetti western, Il grande silenzio by Sergio Corbucci, and from the same year. Black Jack certainly doesn't show violence in a good or positive light (unlike Fulci's Four of the Apocalypse, for example) and it must be said it hasn't lost much of its power during these years. Some "infamous" and "shocking" westerns like Cutthroarts Nine (Joaquim Luis Romero Marchent) seem rather pathetic in front of these much more visual, also mentally violent and effective works of the genre.