The Wild Bunch

I have no problem with westerns, even old ones. I liked The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, and loved Unforgiven, and others. Unfortunately, I just couldn't get into The Wild Bunch. I think I 'get it', a few talented men gang up with a bunch of losers (on both goodguy and badguy sides) and the losers basically drag 'em all down into chaos. And the whole "end of an era" is pretty cool. Unfortunately, the film seriously meanders. There are long scenes that don't seem to have any point -- they don't move along the characterizations or the storyline. Maybe it's because I'm watching the "full-length version" of 127 minutes that it's so boring. It's not clear who's doing what why. Someone gets shot and the people around don't seem to mind. There's nothing like a good set up of motivations and goals. And the version I watched (VHS 1989 full-length version) was out of focus. At times I couldn't really tell the characters apart... they all have beards and are dressed the same. I think a lot of people rate a film for how good it was when it came out. I prefer to rate how a film is doing now... that way I can use ratings to decide what I want to see today. Well, action and drama have moved on from 1969 and I felt this film was seriously showing its age. Who should see this film: -- Art classics types only. You have a real racket going on in making the rest of us feel unworthy because when it's boring we call it boring. Don't send me hate mail. A work should stand on its own and if I found it boring that's a valid opinion. I'm going to give The Wild Bunch a disappointing 3 out of 10. Sorry.

Peckinpah has a rep and this is the film which provided most of it. I had the privilege of actually seeing this on the big screen once, in the late seventies. As the beginning credits end, Pike (Holden) tells his bunch "If they move, Kill 'em!" Then Peckinpah's credit appears. A woman seated behind me gasped, whispering "oh, no..." Oh, my. It sounded like the lady didn't know she'd wandered into a Peckinpah film and she knew what she was in for. When you enter Peckinpah-land, you need to be prepared. There are no punches pulled, no sidestepping the unpleasant aspects of life. Peckinpah's characters are tough men; I mean, really tough, not phony-Hollywood tough. In this case, they are coarsened by what seems to be years on the trail, blasted by the sun, snapped at by rattlesnakes, and harassed by bandits. And at this point, they've pretty much had it. Not that they're complaining, mind you. They've lived their lives how they saw fit, this bunch, and they make no apologies for any of it. I believe the actual year is around 1913, just before World War I begins. Most of the action takes place in Mexico, where the Bunch becomes involved with a local general (Fernandez) with the usual delusions of grandeur. If you go by the name of the character Angel, the general can be viewed as a version of the devil. That would make the Bunch avenging angels at the end. But heroes? No, not at all. They have their own code, they know instinctively they're stronger together than on each own, but they reason this concept out also - Peckinpah wants to make sure it's clear these are not unthinking savages. They're just men, who've reached a point in history where they must make a crucial turn. History, it seems, has no real use for them anymore. It's quite simple - they either fade slowly or go out quickly. In a film such as this, with its now insurmountable rep, you tend to wait for those big set pieces, especially the climactic battle. Wait for it, wait for it... here it is. Bam! - you're in Peckinpah territory. You're a part of history.

Sam Peckinpah wants you to know that Hollywood is at last free of its self-imposed Hays Code. He sets out to create the most violent Western to date, and he succeeds. The body count here is higher than in some wars. Every death is captured in slow-motion and augmented with jets of blood. Perhaps these novel visuals were thrilling and shocking to moviegoers in the late 1960s, but decades later desensitization has long since set in. The violence in "The Wild Bunch" has not aged well, and there is little else of interest in the film. A thin storyline links one scene of carnage to the next, but the movie doesn't know what to do with its characters between the action. A sentimental musical score plays to the point of distraction throughout the film but should fool nobody into caring about any of the people on screen. It is, however, nice to see the underrated Robert Ryan in a starring role.

Outlaws led by Pike Bishop on the Mexican/U.S. frontier face not only the passing of time, but bounty hunters (led by former partner of Pike, Deke Thornton) and the Mexican army as well. In 1969 Sam Peckinpah picked up the torch that Arthur Penn lit with 1967's "Bonnie & Clyde", and literally poured gasoline on it to impact on cinema to the point that the shock wave is still being felt today. The death of the "Motion Picture Production Code" in 1967 ushered in a new era for cinema goers, it was a time for brave and intelligent directors to step up to the plate to deliver stark and emotive thunder, and with "The Wild Bunch", director Sam Peckinpah achieved this by the shed load. The Wild Bunch doesn't set out to be liked, it is a harsh eye opening perception of the Western genre, this is the other side of the coin to the millions of Westerns that whoop and holler as the hero gets the girl and rides off into the sunset. Peckinpah's piece is thematically harsh and sad for the protagonists, for these are men out of their time, this is a despicable group of men, driven by greed and cynicism, they think of nothing to selling arms to a vile amoral army across the border. The film opens with a glorious credit sequence as we witness "The Bunch" riding into town, the picture freeze frames in black & white for each credit offering, from here on in we know that we are to witness something different, and yes, something very special. The film is book-ended by ferocious bloody carnage, and sandwiched in the middle is an equally brilliant train robbery and a slow-mo bridge destruction of high quality. Yet the impact of these sequences are only enhanced because the quality of the writing is so good (Walon Green and Roy N. Sickner alongside Peckinpah). There's no pointless discussions or scene filling explanations of the obvious. Each passage, in each segment, is thought through to gain credibility for the shattering and bloody climax. There is of course one massive and intriguing question that hangs over the film - just how did Peckinpah make such low moral men appear as heroes, as the "four outlaws of the apocalypse" stroll into town, their fate to them already known?. Well I'm not here to tell you that because you need to witness the film in its entirety for yourself. But it's merely one cheeky point of note in a truly majestic piece of work. A film that even today stands up as one of the greatest American films ever made. 10/10

For some people who aren't familiar with his work, the name of Sam Peckinpah remains associated with two films: The Wild Bunch (1969) and Straw Dogs (1971). These two pieces of world are linked with a feature that became a trademark in Peckinpah's cinema: violence. The filmmaker who signed remarkable westerns prior to the 1969 film always contended about The Wild Bunch that violence was the inevitable consequence of a world about to collapse. Although, it is usually revered as one of the most important westerns ever made, I do not think it's a work on a par with other unforgettable westerns made by Anthony Mann or John Ford. Numerous elements that pigeonhole "The Wild Bunch" as a pessimistic western are here. William Holden and his gang appear to be jaded men who only want to call it a day. They have a strong tendency for alcohol and prostitutes. Even if they are linked by a strong friendship, they are conscious they have no place to go or to be in a changing world: see the sequences with the car. Furthermore, the machine guns they have to snatch was just being invented. Without mentioning, of course, the famous opening sequence with the children playing cruelly with the scorpions being eaten by ants. So, why is The Wild Bunch ultimately underwhelming? Because if Peckinpah had focused and tightened all the aforementioned features instead of letting his taste for gratuitous violence explode, the result would have been much more palatable. Besides, the only real violent sequences are located at the beginning and at the end of this overlong film. The massacres end up looking like slaughters and they are superfluous filler with the rest of the film. Filming men being killed with massive amounts of blood in slow motion doesn't help matters. Claude Chabrol who sadly died three months ago said about it that it was an example of hateful violence. Between these two would-be pivotal sequences, the film loses its "raison d'etre" dealing with violence if we can put it this way. The action is often sluggish and the events aren't worth a good storytelling. And Robert Ryan's gang is particularly hateful. If you want blood, Peckinpah's film has got it. And as for me, the omnipresence of violence to epitomize the end of the western genre isn't proof of an artistic success. There are more subtle devices to express it. See Clint Eastwood's Unforgiven (1992).

This is simply one of the best westerns, maybe overall best films ever made. Peckinpah's best by far. It is one of those films that grabs you by the thoat and doesn't let you go until it is over. Brilliant casting. I would be hard pressed to find someone who could have played Pike's part better than William Holden. But the rest of the cast for the main characters: Ernest Borgnine, Robert Ryan, Warren Oates Ben Johnson, Jaimie Sanchez and Edmund O'Brien are equally effective in their respective roles. Even the secondary actors, namely Strother Martin and LQ Jones are also great as the "gutter trash" bounty hunters Robert Ryan has to lead in chasing down Pike and his band. This movie deals with aging gunfighters who had outlived their era, and see their "code of conduct" now passe' in the early 20th Century on the eve of World War I. Technology in the way of cars, planes, and machine guns has rendered living and dying more impersonal than in Pike's et. al day. In some ways, with the end of the millennium at hand and all the vast technological changes, and changes in values, habits, and lifestyles that have taken place, even in the last couple of decades, many of us viewing the picture can sense just a bit of empathy with the main characters... Although this movie is an action film, there is a sort of foreboding throughout the film that the end is near for them. Yet when it occurs it will happen on their terms. One of my favorite scenes is when Pike and Dutch are sitting in their bedrolls by the fire at Angel's village. Pike talks about the railroad man Harrigan and how "some people just can't stand to admit they're wrong... or learn by it!" And then Dutch asks Pike if he believes they had learned anything today, referring to the bloodbath in the opening scene in Starbuck, to which Pike replies "I sure hope to God we did." The movie when released in 1969 received a lot of criticism for the violence, which was indeed unparralelled at that time. But it is relatively tame by today's standards. Moreover, the violence is not gratuitious as we see in so many films today. You see consquences to the violence hence the "death ballet." the two children holding each other during the shootout in the opening scene, and Robert Ryan's agonizing chagrin at carnage in the street and noticing the young children emulating the gunfighters in the street, the dead bodies not yet removed.. A suprising number of people who have seen this film have not seen the Director's Cut which was re-released in 1994. It puts back in many key scenes, which develops Pike and Deke Thorton's past, which is crucial to tying the movie together and making it a brilliant film. Without these scenes, then it makes little or no sense.. Unfortunately, many television stations when showing this film show the "butchered" version........ A 30th Anniversary addition has recently come out that includes a half-hour documentary "The Wild Bunch: A Portait in Montage, " which, made in 1996 received much acclaim, including an Oscar Nomination.. It makes the viewer even more appreciate Peckinpah's brilliant improvisational skill as well as the technical feats, such as the unforgettable Rio Grade river bridge scene.

source: The Wild Bunch

The Wild Bunch

Critics of Sam Peckinpah generally focus on the gore and violence in his films. "The Wild Bunch" will probably not assuage these critics, but the violence is not gratuitous. In fact, it is almost perfectly meshed in this story of a group of outlaws held together by some frail and some strong bonds who realize that their era - and probably their lives - are almost at an end. The story also deals with a man (Robert Ryan) who was wounded and forced out of the gang, and who must now capture and kill his friend (William Holden), with no option other than to succeed. This film is also about loyalty, choice and honor, and is carried by surprisingly strong acting and writing. Yes the violence is on a large scale (which seems to be commonplace for films portraying the Mexican Revolution), but it is completely in place with these characters and the era in which they live. This is not always a pleasant film to watch, but it is very rewarding, and may be the best film Peckinpah made.

Flawless, powerful, fantastic, this piece of jewellery is the turn of the western history, the transition movie between the old western, and the new one; the link between the American and Spaghetti western. There is a before WILD BUNCH and an after WILD BUNCH. So many directors have been inspired by this terrific piece of work, the best of Peckinpah and also not the most amputated, unlike MAJOR DUNDEE or PAT GARRETT AND BILLY THE KID. Characters are so poignant, fightng in a combat lost in advance, in this so magnificently filmed and edited gold nugget. I don't even speak of the climax, the most brutal gunfight ever filmed in the movie history, so brilliant, jawdropping sequence, where the audiences are stuck to their seats, grabbed to their armrests watching those fantastic characters at last fighting their gloomy, tragic fate. We suffer for them, we nearly weep for them, that's precisely the strength of this unavoidable movie. Among the best western ever made.