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Good sub plots. Vengeance is the driving force of the story. Will be or is a western classic. I put this in my top 25 greatest westerns. Lots of shoot em up. I bought the box set of Sam Peckinpah's western. Lots of good actors. Was worth the price for 4 movies and free delivery.
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). What an unbelievable movie. 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. Above all, this is a great movie. Kennedy and 40,000 American soldiers in Vietnam died: From a sea of bullets. 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). 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. If you look real carefully he's smirking as if he's saying, 'I did it.
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. I finally got revenge without laying a finger.'. Robinson, you're trying to seduce me. 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. Then there's the violence. 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).
Listening to the bullets going off, I couldn't help but think about the other movie of that time "Bonnie and Clyde". Take for example the scene at the end in which he arrives after the shooting. 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. 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). 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.
It also changed moviegoers that saw the film."
Peckinpah excels here as do the actors and their performances. Saw this movie back in the 70's and have loved it ever since. Holdens character is the most memorable
Peckinpah's is prose, albeit with tweaks. For all the claims of upsetting the apple cart, Peckinpah's tale is punctuated with numerous poorly scripted scenes. It's merely a good film that has been passed by later films, and lacks the depth Leone's film still does. 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. 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. In Peckinpah's film it's William Holden, a second level leading man. 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. Then there is the actual storylines of the films.
But in Leone's film it's Henry Fonda- one of Hollywood's towering filmic giants of American decency. 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. 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. Part of the reason is that Leone's film is far more stylized and revolutionary.
Leone's film shows almost nothing happen for the same amount of time. No. We see children sadistically dropping scorpions on to red anthills, then setting the wee creatures ablaze. Leone's choice is far more fundamentally disturbing. 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. Now consider the two leading men used as psychopathic killers. 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.
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. This is visual poesy. 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. We see a train station captured, and wait. 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. Choose ignorance.you know how the rest of that saying goes.
See the same for the use of a modern sounding soundtrack for an anachronistic effect as at some points the score reminded me of an old 70s police drama effect, frontal nudity "The Graduate" etc. William Holden and Robert Ryan also seem miscast for this as I just couldn't see them as the down and dirty outlaws that they were supposed to be as they just seemed too decent. However, just because this film borrowed heavily from themes that were originally shown by films that just preceded it doesn't make this in any way a bad film but it does in my mind put some perspective into it and hopefully remove some of the hype that accompanies it. They looked so out of place during the flashback scene in the whorehouse and somehow when trying to explain the gash in his leg, Holden's character while describing his adulterous ways almost made me laugh it was so hard to believe. Although a good western, this is certainly not the best ever; for that you'll need to watch "Unforgiven" and even "High Noon" and "Butch Cassidy. Kid" not to mention "Stagecoach" are a lot better than this. This Original Director's Cut version of "The Wild Bunch" is a real treat as they did an excellent job with the restoration and especially with the sound quality as the Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround sound is excellent although despite heroic attempts at picture quality restoration, there are many white spots and other imperfections in a number of frames.
For the violence that begins and ends the movie see "Bonnie and Clyde"; for the theme of outlaws becoming obsolete and hence wanting to make that one big job and then "retiring" see "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid". Hopefully the Blu-ray version took the opportunity to clean these up. This is a good adventure flick although I do call its originality into question when quite obviously this film borrows from a number of other films that shortly preceded it. The others though were excellently cast although Ben Johnson's first scene when he blatantly tries to copy the Walter Huston mad outburst scene from "The Treasure of the Sierra Madre" I found stupid and unnecessarily plagiaristic.Overall a good adventure film but it copies too much from prior films of the time to be a great classic for me.
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