The Wild Bunch (30th Anniversary Widescreen Edition) | William Holden, Ernest Borgnine

The Wild Bunch (30th Anniversary Widescreen Edition) | William Holden, Ernest Borgnine | Wild Bunch

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The Wild Bunch (30...

	The Wild Bunch (30th Anniversary Widescreen Edition) William Holden, Ernest Borgnine Warner Home Video, 1999 average customer review:based on 214 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Here's how director Sam Peckinpah described his motivation behind The Wild Bunch at the time of the film's 1969 release: "I was trying to tell a simple story about bad men in changing times. The Wild Bunch is simply what happens when killers go to Mexico. The strange thing is you feel a great sense of loss when these killers reach the end of the line." All of these statements are true, but they don't begin to cover the impact that Peckinpah's film had on the evolution of American movies. Now the film is most widely recognized as a milestone event in the escalation of screen violence, but that's a label of limited perspective. Of course, Peckinpah's bloody climactic gunfight became a masterfully directed, photographed, and edited ballet of graphic violence that transcended the conventional Western and moved into a slow-motion realm of pure cinematic intensity. But the film--surely one of the greatest Westerns ever made--is also a richly thematic tale of, as Peckinpah said, "bad men in changing times." The year is 1913 and the fading band of thieves known as the Wild Bunch (led by William Holden as Pike) decide to pull one last job before retirement. But an ambush foils their plans, and Peckinpah's film becomes an epic yet intimate tale of betrayed loyalties, tenacious rivalry, and the bunch's dogged determination to maintain their fading code of honor among thieves. The 144-minute director's cut enhances the theme of male bonding that recurs in many of Peckinpah's films, restoring deleted scenes to deepen the viewer's understanding of the friendship turned rivalry between Pike and his former friend Deke Thornton (Robert Ryan), who now leads a posse in pursuit of the bunch, a dimension that adds resonance to an already classic American film. The Wild Bunch is a masterpiece that should not be defined strictly in terms of its violence, but as a story of mythic proportion, brimming with rich characters and dialogue and the bittersweet irony of outlaw traditions on the wane. --Jeff Shannon

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"If They Move, Kill 'Em!"

This line, spoken by William Holden's character Pike Bishop, is about the important thing you need to know about "The Wild Bunch"; just as "Bonnie and Clyde" was summed up by the line 'We rob banks', "The Graduate" with 'Mrs. Robinson, you're trying to seduce me. Aren't you?', and "Cool Hand Luke" with 'What we have here is a failure to communicate' (strangely enough, Holden's line is then followed by the subtitle 'Director by Sam Peckinpah' as if the director saw this as an opportunity for some film scholar to ever do a montage of his career). What an unbelievable movie. I think this one surpassed Sergio Leone's "Once Upon a Time in the West" as the greatest western I ever saw. The climax of when the characters get blooded up is a testiment that the 60's was ending in chaos and uncertainty (the same is about to happen for this decade) and the director gave moviegoers in 1969 a reminder of how John F. Kennedy and 40,000 American soldiers in Vietnam died: From a sea of bullets. Great acting from Holden, Ernest Borgnine, Edmond O' Brien, Jaime Sanchez, Ben Johnson, Warren Oates, and Strother Martin (the same one that said the famous line in "Cool Hand Luke" that I just mentioned).

But the real star of this movie is Robert Ryan-who plays Dee Thorton; who is in the Bunch until he was kicked off and now he plots revenge. It is a shock as to why Ryan did not get an Oscar nomination that year for Best Supporting Actor for this film (how can they give one to Danny Kaye and not to him?). Take for example the scene at the end in which he arrives after the shooting. If you look real carefully he's smirking as if he's saying, 'I did it! I finally got revenge without laying a finger!'. Without question one of the three 60's performances that should of been nominated (the other two were James Coburn for "The President's Analyst" and Joseph Cotten for "Petulia"; who like Ryan, his career was wasted by not having an Oscar nomination). And speaking of that, it was also an outrage for the Academy to give "Hello Dolly" and "Anne of a The Thousand Days" Best Picture nominations when it should of gone to this movie and "Easy Rider".

My favorite scene in this movie was definally the train sequence in which Dutch (Borgnine) emerges from the barrel and points a rifle at the Mexican troops as he smiles. That gave me chills so much that if they ever do a montage of film moments in the 60's, the moment in which Borgnine smiles would be in it. Then there's the violence. Listening to the bullets going off, I couldn't help but think about the other movie of that time "Bonnie and Clyde". What gets lost is the fact this film has more nudity than the Best Picture winner of that year "Midnight Cowboy" (it was first rated X and to my knowledge, there's not a SINGLE nude scene!).

Above all, this is a great movie. As what narrator Kris Kristofferson said in the documentary "Sam Peckinpah's West" (that is featured in the DVD): "'The Wild Bunch' not only changed Sam Peckinpah's life. It also changed moviegoers that saw the film."

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Wild Bunch

Saw this movie back in the 70's and have loved it ever since. Peckinpah excels here as do the actors and their performances. Holdens character is the most memorable

Good violent western

I put this in my top 25 greatest westerns. Lots of good actors. Lots of shoot em up. Vengeance is the driving force of the story. Good sub plots. Will be or is a western classic. I bought the box set of Sam Peckinpah's western. Was worth the price for 4 movies and free delivery.

Overrated

Director Sam Peckinpah's two hour and twenty-five minute long 1969 Western classic, The Wild Bunch, is certainly an influential and important film, but, compared to the other great Western released that year, Sergio Leone's Once Upon A Time In The West, it has not held up nearly as well. There are several reasons for this fact, and by making that statement I am not stating that Peckinpah's film is in any way a bad film. No. It's merely a good film that has been passed by later films, and lacks the depth Leone's film still does. Part of the reason is that Leone's film is far more stylized and revolutionary. No, that film is not nearly as violent as Peckinpah's, and it is the violence of The Wild Bunch (and occasionally claims of its mainstreaming slow motion cinematography mixed with quick cutting) that is usually the lynchpin to arguments for its revolutionary status, not its more straightforward and derivative storytelling; although the earlier Bonnie And Clyde, by director Arthur Penn, deserves more of the credit (or blame) for mainstreaming over the top and slow motion violence.
Compare the openings of the two films. In Peckinpah's film there is the great opening montage where the heroes/villains are introduced, and then the action is frozen into a black and white image. We see children sadistically dropping scorpions on to red anthills, then setting the wee creatures ablaze. Then we see the heroes, dressed as good guy American soldiers become vicious killers as they rob a bank, then get in a shootout with bounty hunters during a Temperance March. Leone's film shows almost nothing happen for the same amount of time. We see a train station captured, and wait. This is visual poesy. Peckinpah's is prose, albeit with tweaks.
Now consider the two leading men used as psychopathic killers. In Peckinpah's film it's William Holden, a second level leading man. But in Leone's film it's Henry Fonda- one of Hollywood's towering filmic giants of American decency. Leone's choice is far more fundamentally disturbing. Then there is the actual storylines of the films. For all the claims of upsetting the apple cart, Peckinpah's tale is punctuated with numerous poorly scripted scenes. There are numerous moments where the characters in the gang simply do not speak realistically, and where they force laughter, like at the end of a bad tv sitcom- there's the scene with the sauna, with the whores, the scene where Angel's villagers steal weapons from the gang, and others. Leone has no such moments, and although there is less actual violence in Leone's films, there is nothing within Peckinpah's film as primally shocking nor disconcerting as watching Fonda's character murder the whole McBain clan.... Despite its reputation, this overrated film gives no real insight into either the Old West nor the human condition, and certainly nothing new. Too much of it, especially in interior stage shots, and in some of the dialogue and forced laughter between the gang members, feels like refried Bonanza, or other banal tv Westerns of the era, whereas Leone's Once Upon A Time In The West was wholly original. Peckinpah's film is a good, but not great, film, even if it is an enjoyable diversion for an afternoon, and was certainly influential- just look at the final shot of Lyle Gorch at the machine gun and there is an almost identical pose struck by James Franciscus at the end of Beneath The Planet Of the Apes, released a year later. If one goes into this film fresh, it will be an enjoyable film, a cut above the simpleminded John Wayne tripe that dominated the silver screen for the three decades prior, but if one expects a true masterpiece, disappointment is bound to follow. Choose ignorance....you know how the rest of that saying goes.

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