Tuco in "The Good the Bad and The Ugly" is honestly amazing
I've been watching TGTBTU (tuguttubutu) again recently and just thinking about how, unlike any other character in the movie, Tuco is the most human. I mean, Angel Eyes and Blondie are incredible, well-acted, compelling, aesthetically-grabbing, but you've got to admit they're rather alien, in a weird kind of way.
Angel Eyes is obviously evil to a classic standard, wanting nothing but to cause mayhem for extremely vague reasons related to general self-preservation and/or greed, and his reasons are much less important to the narrative as opposed to the threat he represents. Sure, he's got a bit of a past, but we never even learn his real name. He's an excellent villain, a perfect character in one of my favorite movies ever, but like Maleficent or Ursula or Scar, he's just that. A villain, and I love it, but it's definitely not "human", at least in an emotional sense.
And Blondie? Sure, its different obviously but his whole schtick is that he literally never tells us anything about him. We don't know his name, his heritage, his backstory, hardly anything. Anything we do know is just sorta vaguely picked up or known in a more personality way, like seeing how he responds to situations with complexity while never actually divulging anything more tangible.
But Tuco? Tuco? He's a creepy little criminal with a brother in the priesthood and two dead parents he hasn't seen for nine years. He used to have a wife somewhere, his eyes filled with tears upon hearing of his parents death. He's got more names than Blondie or Angel Eyes could ever hope to carry: Tuco Benedicto Pacífico Juan María Ramírez. He carries his name and his hastily-drawn sign of the cross everywhere he goes, gleefully cheats and steals and is genuinely a piece of sh/t, but also brags about how his brother is the "leader of the whole abbey!" after being thrown out by said brother who is also hurting. He's greedy and strange and a fantastic with a gun (prefers pistols to revolvers) and will sell anybody out for a nickel, and he's just so human.
Angel Eyes and Blondie don't try to not tell you anything about themselves. They're not interested in talking, albeit for different reasons, and would probably take it in stride if you did find anything out, but Tuco? Tuco is the only person who actually doesn't want you to know anything while simultaneously never being able to shut up. It's important to not use your own name in the brutal world they live in, a statement said by Tuco himself, and yet he's constantly speaking in a pseudo third-person, naming himself in a way that reveals how much he misses the life he left behind and even regrets the life he currently leads while also, and this is very important, totally vibing with his current life of debauchery and violence.
He's us. He's me. I think when watching movies, projecting onto characters is expected and even encouraged, but it's easy/enjoyable to see ourselves in those that are untouchable. Strange. Interesting. Vague enough to be Romantically projected upon I guess. But Tuco? He's got so much stuff to him it's spilling off the sides. He's pathetic, annoying, somehow worse than Angel Eyes, and that's how I am. That's how most people are. Sure, I've got a conscience, and I can say pretty proudly I'm leading a better life than Tuco over here, but like. Hurting, a little stupid, wanting to seem like Blondie or Angel Eyes (enigmatic, stoic), but coming off as overwhelmingly talkative and annoying instead, lashing out when accidentally becoming vulnerable, a walking contradiction, feeling my faults but never actually fixing them because, on some level, I haven't taken responsibility for my own actions? Tuco. We're Tuco.
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