The ultimate "spaghetti western," filmed on American locations by Sergio Leone, whose view of the West upsets all the clichés of the genre, undermines myth with brutality and turns comforting stereotypes into haunting archetypes. For starters, Henry Fonda is cast as a very bad guy, a professional gun hired by the railroads who stops at nothing in the name of progress, even the slaughter of innocent children. (Why were we in Vietnam?) Jason Robards' old-style 'notorious outlaw' is no match for Fonda's modern ruthlessness, while Charles Bronson's expressionless man-with-no-name is preoccupied with an ancient sadness. All of the Leone trademarks are here: the jarring close-ups, the weird background music, raw dialogue and quick, callous violence set against strikingly photographed landscapes. Andrew Sarris writes, "The movie...is Leone's most American effort, but it is dominantly and paradoxically European in spirit, at one and the same time Christian and Marxist, despairing and exultant, nihilistic and regenerative."