The greatest comedy ever to come out of hollywood and that is saying something. The story is simple and uncomplicated and there are no major plots. 3 actors from hollywood get involved with a remote village in mexico, in their quest to get rid of their tormentor, the dacoit El-Guapo.
A village (santa porco) is being traumatised by a group of dacoits led by El-Guapo(alphonso arau). In a case of misunderstanding; the village lass mistakes a movie clip of the amigos for real live action involving real characters, and hires the 3 unsuspecting men to put an end to el guapo. The 3 on their part, are not the brightest of men, and accept the invitation expecting it to be another show to be put for some hotshot mexican landlord. When they do confront El guapo and put on a ’’show’’, they are still under the impression that its entertainment, until one of them gets shot. They waste no time in running away from the scene of action. The dacoits resent the fact that the village had the courage to hire people to fight el guapo and his men. So they kidnap the lass (no, nothing is asked for in return). The 3 Amigos return to the village and the sorry state of affairs forces each one of them to conquer their fears and become The 3 Amigos in real life. And they set of to rescue the girl. The film is perhaps the best comedy I have ever seen. Its slapstick comedy, and one has to carefully watch every part to completely enjoy the film. In short, its a film that you will enjoy the more times you see it. The strongest asset of the film is the casting. There isnt one person whom you could look at and say, ’’you know so-so would have been a better choice for this role’’. Each persons chracter seems to have been meticulously built.
El Guapo is the educated dacoit, whose obvious advantage over his fello dacoits is his education, of which he spares no effort in letting the others know of. His right hand man (someone akin to samba in sholay) is Jefe, completely loyal to el guapo, crude, dirty and crass. The rest of the cronies are perhaps local inhabitants or artists, because they seem so in their place on the sets of the film (this is just an assumption). The 3 amigos are Steve Martin (luckyday), Chevy Chase (dustybottoms) and Martin Short (ned netherlander). Each excels in his role and complement each other so fabulously that it would seem that without any one of them the fiilm would have appeared incomplete. The comedy is light and thoroughly enjoyable, and this film can be watched by children as well. The sets are very well done, not obviously ’sets’ and without being tacky, gaudy, unreal and garish. Are you listening bollywood???? on wonders when bollywood wil comeup with films that are intelligent and not just copies of each other. The story of the 3 amigos is not a new one, infact is a mixture of many, but the director plays around with the chracters so brilliantly that one almost forgets that they have seen something similar before.
The film is an extraordinary one and even by hollywood standards : rare! I cannot remember ever seeing any comedy that can be watched so many times over without losing its humourous appeal. Sad that VCD’s of this film are not available, but the DVD is available abroad. Not a flm to be missed if you havent seen it already. And the next time you watch it please notice the flash bulb boy in el guapos photoshoot session.