Bruce Willis is a man who knows how to squint. He has even proved himself adept at cigar-chomping. Clint Eastwood, however, he is not.

In this remake of Eastwood's A Fistful of Dollars (itself derived from Akira Kurosawa's Yojimbo), Willis plays a loner who rolls into a prohibition-era Western town that has been overrun by gangs of Irish and Italian bootleggers.

Through no fault of his own, except maybe having squinted in the wrong direction, Willis tangles with the Irish thugs and is obliged to bust a cap in some of their asses -- the idiom seems appropriate, as Willis's weapons are suspiciously modern-looking. Meanwhile, Willis shows that it is possible for a squat person to avoid sprays of machine-gun fire if he is fast on his feet. As in the original, our hero pits the gangs against each other, cleaning up the town and making a quick buck in the bargain -- until he comes across Christopher Walken (the Energizer Bunny of psychotic villains). If you like your neo-noir to have a touch of the Van Dammes, this is the film for you.