The Five Man Army

The Five Man Army is a 1969 Italian Zapata Western film in which a group of five men are enlisted to rob a train of a gold shipment during the Mexican Revolution. Directed by Don Taylor, it featured a script by a young Dario Argento, later future maestro of the horror and thriller genre, and a score by Ennio Morricone. Argento directed uncredited also some sequences of the film. Plot Mexican rebels hire the "Dutchman" to rob a train carrying $500,000 in gold on behalf of Victoriano Huerta to finance the Mexican Revolution. Dutchman then enlists four other men to assist him, promising to pay each of them a thousand dollars. They are Mesito, a strong man on the run for cattle rustling; Luis, a circus acrobat turned outlaw; Augustus, a former army officer and explosives specialist who had served in the same unit as Dutchman; and a samurai warrior (referred to only as Samurai), earning a living in a sideshow. Immediately after they assemble, their first undertaking is to save the rebel leader who hired them from being executed. After rescuing him and causing a riot in the village, the five men are forced to flee, along with all the villagers, in order to prevent reprisals. Nevertheless, some soldiers still manage to find the Five and bring them to the local Army commandant. A Mexican woman slips Samurai a knife and the men manage to escape, killing the soldiers and dynamiting the fort's magazine. They are tracked by a large group of mounted pursuers and escape capture after coming upon a small group of rebels, who are there to cover the Five's escape. Though they know that they will be unable to stop the soldiers, the rebels are willing to sacrifice themselves for the Five in the cause of the revolution. The train carrying the gold is heavily defended by a cannon, machine guns, and dozens of soldiers. The Dutchman's plan is to board the train and uncouple the car carrying the gold without stopping it. The difficult robbery succeeds, despite Samurai falling off the train and having to run across country after it, as well as Augustus dropping a key piece of equipment and having to improvise. When the Five return to their hideout, conflict arises amongst them. Luis, Augustus, Mesito, and Samurai had all assumed they were going to take the gold for themselves, while the Dutchman is set on keeping his promise to the rebels.