Directed by:
Sam PeckinpahCinematography:
Lucien BallardComposer:
Jerry FieldingCast:
William Holden, Ernest Borgnine, Robert Ryan, Edmond O'Brien, Warren Oates, Ben Johnson, Alfonso Arau, Strother Martin, L.Q. Jones, Albert Dekker, Bo Hopkins (more)Plots(1)
In 1913, a gang of outlaws (William Holden, Ernest Borgnine and Robert Ryan, amongst others) ride into a Texan border town where the railroad office is their target. The robbery turns into a blood-bath so the gang flee to a desert hideout where they discover that their loot is worthless. With the railroad company's hired guns snapping at their heels, they decide to escape to the apparent safety of the Mexican revolutionaries. (Warner Bros. Home Entertainment)
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Reviews (9)
A solid ride, whose the moral values and strength of friendship inspired of some of the creators of the contemporary film industry (John Woo, Michael Mann). Sam Peckinpah's fondness for blood and violence is very evident, especially in the action scenes, which are excellently shot, unusually clear and realistic, though at times the too hectic editing can be bothersome, but otherwise, more or less satisfaction. The actors deliver exactly what is needed: rough faces, tough gestures, and decisive actions. The central duo forms a perfect example of enemies. It is hard to distinguish between good and evil, which plays only to the advantage of the film.
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Plenty of dead civilians as an inevitable part of a harsh life; men who only use the word "law" when it suits them; a woman as a symbol of a man's mere distraction... Sam Peckinpah had balls like no other director before or since, and the male superiority simply oozes out of his films. Yet it is a superiority that's honest, uncompromising, and harsh at the same time. This ensures that it can only be seen as an expression of an unmistakable creative genius, one that puts an almost mystical equivalence between the words violence and art and expands the film western to indescribable greatness.
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For everything that happened after the train robbery, I would be delighted to give Peckinpah’s most famous picture full marks and I would also gladly place the Wild Bunch on the pedestal of best westerns right behind Leone’s masterpieces. But I can’t, I just can’t. What prevents me doing so it the hour it takes to get going. It’s not bad, but it is so desperately ordinary and confusable with any other western (with the exception of the opening sequence, of course) that it’s hard to watch.
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This is unique. At a time when the western genre was already primarily based on the balladic, character-building and "Kubrick-esque" precision of Once Upon a Time in the West, and when monotonous stories were taking a back seat to popular scenic gems (man-on-man fights, bank robberies), Peckinpah, the violent man of cinema, came up with a picture-perfect ode to manhood in the form of thrilling gunfights, tautly constructed action scenes, excellent actors and, most importantly, that shocking final massacre, quite unconventional compared to the classic John Wayne happy endings, which taught us that a machine gun has a cadence of TA-TA-TA-TA-TA-TA. It may be a bit tedious and emotionally distant at times, but if even I, a born opponent of westerns who at most follows in the footsteps of Sergio Leone, had a great time and got so carried away by the tough male element, there can be no doubt about its enormous and undeniable quality. 80%
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It's a good western, no question about it. It's incredibly bloody, incredibly action-packed, and incredibly gritty, but I simply found that I prefer Sergio Leone and his approach to the Western genre. The Italian is more American, more emotional, and more Western than the Americans themselves. Here, a large part of it is also influenced by the Mexican setting, where much of the film takes place. But as I say, it's a great Western, I just didn't connect with it as much as Once Upon a Time in the West.
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Gallery (196)
Photo © Warner Bros.
![The Wild Bunch - Photos](http://image.pmgstatic.com/cache/resized/w663/files/images/film/photos/162/791/162791970_b1e780.jpg)
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