The westerns I prefer to watch are of the spaghetti variety, but The Wild Bunch is a Sam Peckinpah western, and as such promises to be a little more violent and uncompromising than any John Wayne or Gary Cooper flick.
Sure enough, the film opens with one hell of a shootout, as the film's anti-heroes, a group of ageing outlaws led by Pike Bishop (William Holden), carry out the daring robbery of a railroad payroll. Leaving countless bloody bodies in their wake, the gang escape only to find out that they have been tricked, their swag bags full of silver washers instead of coins.
Still keen for one last big score before they retire, the desperadoes make a deal with a Mexican general, offering to sell him a shipment of rifles and ammo that they plan to steal from a heavily guarded army train. The deal goes sour, however, when one of their number, Angel (Jaime Sánchez), angers the general by keeping some of the rifles to protect his village.
With its ultra stylish ballistic action, with slow-motion deaths and juicy squib-work, The Wild Bunch forever changed the face of the western genre, and became a highly influential film for years to come (John Woo and Quentin Tarantino clearly owe a debt to Peckinpah).
The film closes with an impressive bullet ballet that still holds up today, with a tripod mounted machine gun cutting a swathe through numerous Mexican extras, before Pike and friends are finally overpowered.
Also starring: Ernest Borgnine, Robert Ryan, Edmond O'Brien and Ben Johnson.
Sure enough, the film opens with one hell of a shootout, as the film's anti-heroes, a group of ageing outlaws led by Pike Bishop (William Holden), carry out the daring robbery of a railroad payroll. Leaving countless bloody bodies in their wake, the gang escape only to find out that they have been tricked, their swag bags full of silver washers instead of coins.
Still keen for one last big score before they retire, the desperadoes make a deal with a Mexican general, offering to sell him a shipment of rifles and ammo that they plan to steal from a heavily guarded army train. The deal goes sour, however, when one of their number, Angel (Jaime Sánchez), angers the general by keeping some of the rifles to protect his village.
With its ultra stylish ballistic action, with slow-motion deaths and juicy squib-work, The Wild Bunch forever changed the face of the western genre, and became a highly influential film for years to come (John Woo and Quentin Tarantino clearly owe a debt to Peckinpah).
The film closes with an impressive bullet ballet that still holds up today, with a tripod mounted machine gun cutting a swathe through numerous Mexican extras, before Pike and friends are finally overpowered.
Also starring: Ernest Borgnine, Robert Ryan, Edmond O'Brien and Ben Johnson.