Two Lee Van Cleefs, One Jack Palance, and a Whole Lot of Dust
God’s Gun is one of those forgotten spaghetti westerns that gets dusted off every few years by genre die-hards hoping to unearth a hidden gem. Directed (loosely) by Gianfranco Parolini under the pseudonym “Frank Kramer,” the film brings together a trio of cult icons—Lee Van Cleef, Jack Palance, and Sybil Danning—and promises a tale of revenge, morality, and redemption set against a sun-scorched Mexican town terrorized by outlaws. Sounds like a can’t-miss formula, right?
Well… not quite.
While God’s Gun checks the boxes of the spaghetti western genre—long glances, brutal thugs, sweeping landscapes, and moral ambiguity—it’s hampered by awkward dubbing, strange tonal shifts, and a script that feels like it was written during a siesta. Still, thanks to the charisma of its cast and a few moments of gritty charm, it rides just high enough in the saddle to avoid complete obscurity.
The Plot: A Tale of Two Van Cleefs
The story kicks off in the dusty village of Juno City, where a priest named Father John (Lee Van Cleef) tries to keep the peace as a ruthless gang led by Sam Clayton (Jack Palance) rides into town. The gang is the usual motley crew of scumbags, murderers, and cowards, and they quickly make their presence known—robbing, beating, and ultimately killing the unarmed priest in broad daylight.
Enter Johnny, a young boy whose mother was raped by one of Clayton’s men. Traumatized and desperate, Johnny rides off in search of Father John’s twin brother Lewis (also played by Van Cleef), a gunslinger-turned-drifter who has left his violent past behind. But when blood calls to blood, Lewis returns to Juno City to avenge his brother, set things right, and dispense some old-fashioned justice—with a side of divine reckoning.
It’s your classic western revenge setup, with a spaghetti twist. There’s even a dash of The Count of Monte Cristo in there—two brothers, one spiritual, one violent. But God’s Gun never quite capitalizes on the philosophical duality it teases.
Lee Van Cleef Pulls Double Duty
Let’s start with the good news: Lee Van Cleef does what Lee Van Cleef does best—he scowls, shoots, and carries entire scenes with nothing but a glare and a gravelly voice. Playing dual roles as both the pacifist priest and the cold-eyed gunslinger, Van Cleef brings an air of gravitas that the film sorely needs. Even when the script leaves him high and dry, he manages to elevate the material through sheer presence.
The problem is, he’s criminally underused—especially as Lewis, the gunfighter. For a movie marketed around revenge and redemption, we don’t see enough of his journey or his skills. When he finally does return, it feels like the third act of a different movie. A better one.
Still, there’s something entertaining about watching Van Cleef in priest robes one moment and a poncho the next. He sells the concept of two very different brothers bound by blood and justice, even if the film doesn’t give him much support.
Jack Palance Phones It In (But Still Looks Cool Doing It)
Jack Palance, meanwhile, seems like he was lured into this production with a bottle of tequila and a vague promise of horseback riding. His Sam Clayton is menacing enough, with Palance’s trademark sneer and slouched swagger, but there’s a strange detachment to the performance—as if he’s trying to figure out what movie he’s in.
Still, Palance doing the bare minimum is more entertaining than most actors at full throttle. He delivers his lines like he’s reading scripture at a poker game, and there’s a certain poetry to his brutality. But unlike great spaghetti western villains—think Gian Maria Volonté or Klaus Kinski—he doesn’t inspire hatred so much as indifference.
Sybil Danning: The Woman Caught in the Crossfire
Sybil Danning plays Jenny, Johnny’s mother and the film’s designated symbol of lost innocence and lingering trauma. It’s a fairly thankless role—she’s mostly there to suffer, be threatened, and offer sad-eyed exposition—but Danning does what she can with the material. She brings a quiet dignity to the part and provides a rare moment of emotional grounding in a film that’s otherwise detached from human feeling.
There’s a subplot involving her character’s shame and the boy’s parentage, but it’s undercooked and forgotten once the bullets start flying. That’s God’s Gun in a nutshell: potentially compelling ideas abandoned before they can take root.
Dubbed Dialogue and Directional Drift
As with many spaghetti westerns of the era, God’s Gun suffers from sloppy dubbing. The audio is often out of sync, the voice actors are jarringly mismatched to their characters, and entire conversations feel like they were translated by someone reading subtitles on fast-forward.
The direction doesn’t help. Gianfranco Parolini had previously helmed Sabata and other genre outings, but here his touch feels uncertain. The action sequences are clunky, the camera lingers in the wrong places, and the pacing is uneven—dragging during scenes that should sizzle and rushing through moments that might have added depth.
And yet, amidst the awkward zooms and stale shootouts, you occasionally get flashes of old-school western glory—a standoff in the sunset, a close-up of Van Cleef’s weathered face, a slow ride into town with Morricone-lite music playing in the background.
A Strange Moral Compass
One of the more curious aspects of God’s Gun is its moral angle. The idea of a priest who renounced violence being avenged by his gunslinger twin is rich with thematic possibilities—faith versus vengeance, pacifism versus justice—but the film does very little with it. There’s no real internal conflict, no questioning of the cycle of violence, and no commentary beyond “bad men need to be shot.”
It’s as if the movie wanted to raise big ideas, then chickened out and just went with the simpler route of: “Guy with gun = good. Guy who killed priest = bad.”
Still, that simplicity can be comforting in a retro, Saturday-afternoon-movie kind of way. If you don’t expect nuance, you won’t be disappointed.
Final Verdict
God’s Gun isn’t a great spaghetti western. It’s barely a good one. But it’s not terrible either—it’s just a relic. A curious, uneven, occasionally entertaining entry in the genre that’s mostly worth watching for Van Cleef completists or fans of dusty revenge tales with biblical overtones.
It has its moments: the double role, the gritty aesthetic, the glimpses of spaghetti western charm. But it also has its sins: bad dubbing, wooden pacing, and a general lack of urgency. Like a preacher with a rusty six-shooter, it talks a big game but only occasionally hits the mark.
Rating: 5.5 out of 10 holy bullets
