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It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

After an idiotic opening where some old family members butcher horse bandits in a prolonged scene, using rifles and cannon, we are introduced to the pathetic, "MacGregors clan". Seems they need to take their horses to get sold, thus they go on their way but trouble finds them.The horse bandits' chief, called "Santiago", plans revenge against them. He's in cahoots with the local sheriff and he has a large army of bandits, whom I may say can't seem to shoot straight at all.The seven MacGregor brothers invent a plan for their older brother to join the horse bandit group. What follows is more inane scenes where none of the MacGregors get shot and yet they inflict great amount of damage to the horse bandits.The film has the familiar air of Spain and her arid deserts, but not much in the way to recommend it.Seven Guns for the MacGregors is a below average 1966 Italian spaghetti western that seems like it was made in 1974.

Obviously with the title, the producers were trying to suggest that this movie had elements of the classic films "The Magnificent Seven" and "Seven Brides For Seven Brothers". Unfortunately, the movie ends up short, very short.To begin with, none of the members of the family are made into unique characters. They are just a mindless mob of people shooting and acting alike. In fact, sometimes it's hard during the action scenes to differentiate them from the bad guys! Another big criticism I have with the movie is that it doesn't take long for things to get very confusing. Not understanding what was going on, it was hard to get involved with what happens. Also, the print that currently plays on cable TV is full-frame, when this was shot in widescreen. This makes some scenes even more confusing.There is a decent musical score by Ennio Morricone, but that's not enough to save the movie. Even if you are a spaghetti western fanatic, like I am, I strongly suggest you skip this movie.

There's nothing innovative or clever about this spaghetti western, but that shouldn't keep fans of the genre from giving it a chance. Robert Woods stars as handsome young Gregor MacGregor, one of seven sons of a Scottish ranching family in the Old West. Gregor and his brothers take a trip to Las Mesas to sell the family horses, but they haven't counted on the crooked presence of local heavy Crawford (Cris Huerta), who tries to bully them into accepting a bad deal for the beasts on behalf of crime lord Santillana (Leo Anchoriz). Determined to get the better of the baddies, Gregor insinuates himself into the gang and sabotages a number of their devious plots. Seven Guns for the MacGregors features wall to wall action, including a great barroom brawl accompanied by Chopin, and also works as a comedy thanks to some outrageous faux Scots accents. Beautifully shot by Fernando Ulloa, and nicely scored by Ennio Morricone, this is a fun movie best appreciated via RHV's beautiful PAL format DVD. Though IMDb lists the film with a 107 minute running time, this disc only runs 92 minutes, and seems to be complete.

This spaghetti western can be put into the "routine" category. It has one of those meandering plots which seems to have been put together from notes jotted on the back of an envelope. However, patient viewers will be rewarded by a few quirky moments which add touches of interest to the proceedings. For example, there's the piano player in the saloon who switches to classical music when brawls break out, there's a sequence in which the stripped-to-the-waist hero gets whipped across his bare back -- a flogging which ranks 48th in the book "Lash! The Hundred Great Scenes of Men Being Whipped in the Movies" -- and there's a nifty fight between the good guy and the bad guy involving a rotating waterwheel. What's more, the dubbed English voices trying, occasionally, for Scottish accents produce a few unintended chuckles. It's not much, but you take what you can get.