Two Mules For Sister Sara

Almost all distinguished actors have, at some stage or another in their career, been struck down with a momentary lapse of reason and signed on for a lemon. Robert De Niro has his Showtime, Harrison Ford has his Random Hearts, Kevin Costner has his... well... let's not go into that one, and Clint Eastwood has his Two Mules For Sister Sara. From start to finish, this film’s attempt at the Western/Comedy/Romance genre is rather, unlike the plot, laughable.

Set in Mexico, the story begins with Hogan (Eastwood), the hero of the film, discovering a maiden in distress (MacLaine). She is being robbed by a gang of ruffians, so Hogan does his manly duty and saves the attractive woman, who turns out to be a nun named Sara. Hogan and Sara end up travelling in the same direction, and also find out they have a common goal: the destruction of a French fort that is threatening the livelihood of the surrounding Mexicans. Their motivations are different however; Sister Sara is a sympathiser of the cause, whereas Hogan is just in it for the cash.

We see a string of rather peculiar behaviour from Sara during the journey, such as a smoking and drinking habit and occasional dose of foul language. The pair eventually meet up with a band of Mexican guerrilla fighters, and formulate a cunning plan to kill all the French and have a big party. The rest is just a dose of mindless violence, and is not terribly satisfying. Of course there are a few twists and “surprises� at the conclusion of the film, but nothing that the audience wouldn’t have already discovered an hour earlier.

The transfer is presented in an aspect ratio of 2.35:1, and is 16x9 enhanced.

Generally, the video transfer is actually quite clean and sharp. There are occasional bursts of grain, but not so much as to be a nuisance. A number of film artefacts are present, but no more than one would expect from a film from the 1960s. The disc is dual layered, and the layer change at 55:49 is a little clumsily placed in the middle of a scene. The contrast suffers on a few occasions. Shadow detail is fine, and there is no evidence of any MPEG artefacts.

The subtitles included in this transfer are English, Arabic, Czech, Greek, Hungarian, Turkish and Romanian. I watched for a time with the English subtitles, and did notice that they were often abridged when compared to the dialogue.

There is one soundtrack supplied on the disc, and it is an English Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo offering.

Like the video transfer, the audio is quite well presented. One problem, however, is a slight audio synch problem in a small number of scenes. The dialogue generally comes through clear and understandable without any distortion, although the gun shots can at times sound a little hollow. The score is by Ennio Morricone, and it features a rather amusing musical rendition of a donkey’s “eee-orrr� throughout the main theme.

There are zero extra features contained on this disc.

The story line is dull and somewhat uninteresting, the acting, especially from Shirley MacLaine, is generally not too hot, and the ending comes as no surprise to anyone. The script shoots blank after blank, and ultimately leaves the viewer thinking of how many other more productive things could have been done with the two hours that were just wasted.