The Two Missionaries (1974)

Another day, another Bud Spencer/Terence Hill trailer.  The Two Missionaries (1974) is an historical adventure, with the duo playing a pair of unconventional Catholic priests working as missionaries on an isolated Caribbean island.  They're frequently having run-ins with the local slave-owning trader who runs most of the trading in the area as a racket, with their smuggling operations being used to finance their mission.  Inevitably, their unorthodox approach - which involves actually helping the natives get proper medical attention and nutrition rather than just forcibly converting them - comes to the attention of the Vatican, which orders the local Monsignor to investigate them.  With their arch-enemy the trader being a major financial supporter of the Monsignor's church, things don't look good for the pair.  Consequently, many trademark slapstick fights and action sequences ensue before the situation is resolved.

The Two Missionaries clearly had a fairly large budget, with lots of location shooting and elaborate period sets and Robert Loggia playing the villain. Yet, in its English-language version at least, it has a curiously scrappy feel about it, with sometimes murky photography, poor pacing and a plot that never seems to progress particularly smoothly, resulting in a jumpiness to the film.  Even the fight sequences seem to lack the sort of energy usually associated with the duo and often feel poorly choreographed.  Indeed, the lacklustre feel extends to the whole film, with even the stars looking off the pace and somewhat uncomfortable with their roles.  Perhaps this is down to the characters they play, with Spencer, unusually, playing the more dominant character who propels most of the plot and who is relatively restrained compared to his performances in their other films.  For his part, Hill seems more like a secondary character, his usual trickery and joking for once not taking centre stage and his performance far more subdued than usual.  Something of an atypical Hill and Spencer film as a consequence, but none of the deviations from the norm would matter if the film itself ever sparked properly into life, which it never does, resulting in a rare misfire for the pair.