Lee Van Cleef's best outing,with of course the exception of the dollars trilogy with Clint Eastwood. Sabata is a helluva spaghetti western, loaded with non-stop action, plenty of bullets flying everywhere, typical kill for the gold plot, and Van Cleef literally becomes the character within himself, here is Sabata , there goes Van Cleef, simply top-notch acting. SABATA is a credit to the spaghetti western genre, and a must own-and be sure to check out the derringer,starring Lee Van Cleef and William Berger.(disregard the slapping scene,a waste of film anyway.)an MGM release.

Sabata is a great adition to the Italian Western genre: the characters are well rounded, the plot is involving, the music is cool and, above all, it stars Lee Van Cleef and William Berger.

There are no extras, only a set of trailers for other westerns (Italian and otherwise). Sabata is a sadly neglected film which I think could do with a special edition.

At least it's uncut.

When The Law can't be trusted , He'll even the odds . Who he is and where he comes from , no one knows . But the leading citizen of the Western town of Daugherty think he knows too much . And they want to silence him - forever . Get ready to fast-paced , explosive action as Lee Van Cleef (1925-1989) stars as SABATA , the mysterious , steely-eyed gunslinger who , after he discovers Daugherty's elite are the masterminds behind the elaborate bank heist , imposes his bullet-laced brand of justice on the town . Brides , bullets and even his turncoat best friend can't stop Sabata as he guns and gallops to a final spetacular shootout that's one of the biggest gunfight ever seen in the movies . Filmed in Spain and Italy , SABATA is another of producer Alberto Grimaldi's (1925-) * The Good , the Bad , and the ugly * (1966) hard-hitting Westerns , a series which began as an Imitation of the Hollywood genre but results in a creation of a new screen star -the Western "anti-hero" . Yes it's true about the bad sound syncro . High Quality Transfer .

Sabata is one of the very best Spaghetti Westerns. Unfortunately MGMs american version of this DVD is marred by a terrible sound-sink problem throughout most of the middle of the film. And I do not mean bad dubbing! Sabata was filmed with the actors speaking entirely in English so the sound should be perfect. The sound becomes and stays so out of sink that voices and all sound effects (footsteps, slaps, gun shots etc.) are noticeably off by about a whole two seconds. There is one scene where Sharky's mother is slapping him. The slap sounds occur every time she pulls her hand back. Characters continue to move their mouths long after their voices have stopped. This completely mars one of the greatest spaghetti westerns of all time and the very best of the three Sabata films! This is a problem with the MGM/Sony DVD pressing not with the original film.

Sabata is otherwise an excellent combination of western action, acrobats, fancy gadgets, humor, good music and clever camera work. The acting by Lee Van Cleef and the rest of the cast is top notch.

Van Cleef, a great character actor has incredible presence yet never upstages the other actors giving the cast an ensemble feeling rather then a one man show.

The clever editing, fluid camera work, and color photography in Sabata is super. The film is extremely stylish and purposely tongue in cheek, highly entertaining, imaginative, and funny.

The plot - A trio of city-big-wigs attempt to empty the bank. Sabata finds out and blackmails the buch. The trio sends more and more bad guys to dispatch Sabata (Blazing Saddles Style). With each attempt the henchmen are bumped-off (in increasingly funny and imaginative ways). After each attempt Sabata ups the anti. This continues until all hell breaks loose in a wonderfully filmed Indiana Jones style shootout.

Roger Greenspun of the New York Times accurately describes the film in his review: "As heroic fiction, it is stronger on colorful success than on noble character, but it is so energetic and at the same time so tactful about its achievements that I find it impossible not to credit most of its ideas at face value-and sometimes a little more... Sabata (Lee Van Cleef) is a black-cloaked mysterious stranger, with looks of Judex and the manner of Fearless Fosdick...Sabata is one of those rarities (even among mysterious strangers) who absolutely never makes mistakes, never is surprised, and always wins, usually by superior fire power, even when their enemies number an army. He is assisted (not that he needs it) by a Mexican ne'er-do-well (Pedro Sanchez) and an acrobatic Indian (Nick Jordan) whose leaps and somersaults wonderfully extend the meticulous agility that is central to Sabata's enterprise and to the film's style...style must be very nearly an article of faith with (director) Frank Kramer (his real name is Gianfranco Parolini) whose graceful camera performs elegant arabesques above the simplicities of a plot for which he is also partially responsible. "Sabata" keeps throwing out almost gratuitous pleasures in movement and design-like the lovely Mario Bava adventure films-and for this enterprising prodigality Kramer deserves praise. So do the cast members"
We have waited a long time for Sabata to come out on DVD. The sound problem on Sabata is terribly disappointing. I would have given this 5 stars if not for the sound problem.

Note - MGMs European PAL regon 2 version of Sabata has the sound in perfect sink with the film thoughout. If you have a PAL all-region DVD player this is the version of Sabata to get. [...] sells this version.
Its great - 5 stars!

It's been reported elsewhere on the Web that there's a sound sync problem with this disc: about 45 minutes into the movie and lasting for about 30 minutes, the audio track is undeniably out of sync with the picture, about a quarter-second ahead of the images. (The identical Region 2 release of this disc is reported to have no such problem.) Per other reports on the Web, some of the film's best scenes are ruined because of this screw-up on MGM's part - the disc was tried on different players with the same result, so it's clearly an issue with the disc's authoring.

Also, the disc doesn't seem to be flagged for progressive scan.

Otherwise, the movie's anamorphically presented in its original 2.35 AR with English and French mono audio tracks (though the French track is also out of sync, English subtitles, and trailers & promos for other MGM westerns.

Don't say I didn't warn ya...