For a Few Dollars More

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

Where life had no value, death, sometimes, had its price. That is why the bounty killers appeared.

For a Few Dollars More is the least remembered movie in Sergio Leone's Dollars Trilogy. It is the second, A Fistful of Dollars being the first and The Good, the Bad and the Ugly being the third.

The Man With No Name (nicknamed "Monco" or "Manco", respectively Italian and Spanish slang for "missing one hand", because he does nearly everything with his left hand in order to keep his right hand free to draw and fire) and Colonel Mortimer, a skillful Bounty Hunter, are both hunting the famed gang leader El Indio. The Man With No Name is motivated by money; the Colonel is motivated by Revenge. After the two bounty hunters clash, they put aside their differences and team up to capture Indio. As part of their plan, Manco infiltrates Indio's gang by busting one of Indio's friends out of prison. However, the plan does not work out as hoped.


Tropes used in For a Few Dollars More include:
  • Awesome but Impractical: Col. Mortimer's Buntline Special. Its longer barrel gives Mortimer an edge in distance, meaning he can wait out of a pistol's normal range and line up shots, but that same long barrel also prevents him from quickdrawing it, a disadvantage in some of the situations he finds himself in. He carries a derringer up his sleeve for such emergencies.
    • It was somewhat practical for those who preferred a pistol grip as opposed to the lever action.
  • Ax Crazy: El Indio. Heavily implied with Wild the hunchback as well (esp. given that he's played by Klaus Kinski).
  • Badass: The Man With No Name/Manco, as well as Colonel Mortimer
    • Also Indio - he spends much of his screen time in a drug-induced haze, but is still a scary and efficient villain.
  • Bandito: El Indio
  • Bang Bang BANG: At the beginning of the film, every single one of their shots also sounds like a ricochet, even though they only shoot into the air and the ground.
  • Bank Robbery
  • Batman Gambit: Mortimer tells the man with no name to make Indio go north. He tells him to go south, even though Indio was planning to go north to begin with. Indio splits the difference and heads east. Naturally, Mortimer is waiting for them at their destination.
  • Best Served Cold: Col. Mortimer has spent years honing his skills as a bounty hunter, tracking down the bandit, who murdered Mortimer's brother-in-law and raped Mortimer's sister until she committed suicide.
  • Big Damn Heroes: As shown above on the page image Clint Eastwood's Man with No Name character saves Mortimer by intervening in Indio's unfair Mexican standoff by providing a gun for him to use against the villain. With his gun trained on Indio satisfied that the odds have now been evened in his friend's favor he sits down and says, "Now we start."
  • Bounty Hunter: The Man With No Name and his rival/partner Mortimer
  • Breaking Out the Boss
  • Butt Monkey: Groggy
  • Colonel Badass: Mortimer.
  • Continuity Nod: The Man's injured hand is the same one he injured when being tortured in A Fistful of Dollars.
  • Darker and Edgier: Mostly due to the insane El Indio, arguably even scarier than the heartless Angel Eyes from the next movie.
  • Dark Is Not Evil: Mortimer often dresses in black and is clearly the good guy when compared to El Indio.
  • Dead Little Sister: Colonel Mortimer spends the whole movie hunting down the man who caused his sister's death.
  • Decoy Protagonist: Lets face it, this film's more about Col. Mortimer and his quest for vengeance than Manco.
  • Defiled Forever: Colonel Mortimer's sister, whose reaction doubles as a Stupid Sacrifice.
  • Duel to the Death: Inevitable.
  • Evil Laugh: Indio does this a lot.
  • Freudian Trio: Manco's the Ego, Mortimer the Superego, and El Indio a very crazed Id.
  • Gray and Black Morality
  • The Gunslinger: Manco and Mortimer
  • Heroic Comedic Sociopath: Manco and Mortimer shooting each other's hat away is played for laughs, and for gaining mutual respect, but Manco proved unable to hit Mortimer's hat after shooting it too far away, yet kept shooting despite Mortimer picking up the hat. It's basically luck he didn't hit Mortimer.
  • Hey, You: The protagonists settle into a friendly rivalry of sorts, addressing one another as "boy" and "old man", respectively.
  • Improbable Aiming Skills: In the hat-shooting contest between Manco and Mortimer. Done a second time when Mortimer grazes Manco's neck with a bullet, so he'll have a convincing injury to back up his story when he meets up with Indio again.
  • Infant Immortality: Averted. Indio's goons kill a baby offscreen.
  • It's Personal
  • Knight Errant: The Man With No Name
  • Memento MacGuffin: Mortimer has one. Indio has one, except that it isn't.
  • Mismatched Eyes: One of El Indio's eyes is a slightly different shade than the other.
  • No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: As is typical of the trilogy.
  • No Name Given: The Man With No Name
  • Nostalgic Music Box: Two pocket watches, one belonging to Mortimer and the other carried by Indio, that played the same tune The two watches originally belonged to Mortimer's sister and her husband. Indio stole one after killing him and raping her.
  • Ominous Music Box Tune
  • Psycho for Hire: Heavily implied with the hunchback. El Indio would be one, but he's in charge.
  • Quick Draw: Indio likes to challenge people he's captured to these; playing the Ominous Music Box Tune with its end as the cue to fire.
    • He also likes to place whoever he's facing at a disadvantage, such as surrounding them with goons or removing their guns from easy access. It's only when Manco steps in at the end that he actually has to fight fairly.
      • Also, Indio's heard the song a thousands times while his opponents have no clue when the music might end. This of course puts him on equal terms with Col. Mortimer.
  • Revenge by Proxy
  • Roaring Rampage of Revenge
  • Smoking Is Cool. And totally badass.
  • Tragic Keepsake: Colonel Mortimer 's pocketwatch.
  • Tranquil Fury: Mortimer calmly eats his dinner while sitting across the table from the man who raped and murdered his sister.
  • Wall of Weapons: Col. Mortimer has a collection of firearms strapped to a rolled-up sheet of canvas carried by his horse.
  • Wanted Poster: The first villain we see added two zeros on his own wanted poster, claiming it wasn't anywhere near enough.
    • Colonel Mortimer also has a bit of a staring contest with El Indio's wanted poster as he shoots it with his mind.
  • Why Don't Ya Just Shoot Him: Sort of subverted, since Indio thought he would have profited from the bounty hunters killing off most of his gang (as he wouldn't have had to split the loot). Of course, it doesn't work out as well as he had planned.
    • The Dead Little Sister might well have survived if she'd shot her rapist instead of herself.
  • You Look Familiar: Lee Van Cleef played the Bounty Hunter Colonel Douglas Mortimer, who worked as the protagonist's ally. Van Cleef later plays the villain Angel Eyes in The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly.
    • El Indio's actor, Gian Volonte, also played Ramon, the villain in A Fistful of Dollars. It can be somewhat jarring if you watch the two movies back to back.
      • It could have been worse; Volonte was originally supposed to play Tuco in The Good, the Bad and the Ugly as well, but Leone later decided he wanted an actor with a natural comical talent.