Wild Bunch

Pros: A true classic: Peckinpah, Holden, Borgnine, Photography, Editing, Score, Wide Screen
Cons: Beware of butchered video versions. Get the Wide Screen Director's Cut!

There were giants in those days; men of renown. Holy Bible. Since I understand that there are a number of versions of The Wild Bunch floating around, this review refers to the 145 minute Director's Cut in Letterbox ...

Pros: Peckinpah's visual flair; excellent cast, story, script and action scenes
Cons: Not many

If you want to know where the new age of American action films began, look no further that Sam Peckinpah’s legendary, infamous western THE WILD BUNCH. Containing what was, at the time, some of the most violent scenes ever captured on a camera,...

Pros: Peckinpah's Direction, Script, Editing, Locations, Cinematography, Music, Violence, & Cast.
Cons: None, Except for the P*ssies Who Can't Stand Gory Violence!

Throughout the history of the Western genre, the formula of a Western film is often filled with a duel between a sheriff and a cowboy, whether either one is good or bad. Before the 1960s, the genre was dominated by the likes of John Ford and the films ...

Pros: William Holden, Ernest Borgnine, any one of a dozen wonderful scenes.
Cons: Nada.

Ever wonder what became of cowboys? Not the Roy Rogers kind, but the dirty, sweaty, bank-robbing brothel denizens? Did they just get wiped out like the dinosaurs, or was it instead a gradual and difficult extinction? Well, from the looks of Sam...

Pros: William Holden: the most underrated actor of his generation. Fantastic direction.
Cons: None.

To be perfectly honest, I am not the type of filmgoer who specifically will see a movie only for a particular actor. As a subscriber to the “auteur theory”, the careers of most actors are placed by the wayside. Don’t get me wrong however, ...

Pros: Direction, Cinematography, Acting, Script, Pacing, Sound Design, Editing. . .
Cons: a few forgivable forced moments. . .

The Wild Bunch remains one of the greatest and most influential films ever made. The Wild Bunch takes John Huston's Treasure of the Sierra Madre, Sergio Leone's Dollars trilogy, (Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars More, and The Good the Bad and The...

Pros: An apocalyptic Western saga, superb performances, photography, editing and settings (mostly in Durango, Mexico).
Cons: Brutality, gore, loathsome characters. Not for children.

Like many great directors, like Erich von Stroheim and Orson Welles, Sam Peckinpaw (1925-1984) was difficult to control. He fought with producers and studio heads and, as is usually the case, he lost. Hence, about half his 15 films were severely ...

Pros: Heroic imagery that never seems forced, great dialogue and acting, and the single greatest shoot-out ever filmed.
Cons: Grotesque sexism; women are either faithless, or whores.

It has become a cliche to somberly intone that Sam Peckinpah was a misunderstood genius who never got his due. Well, yes, and he was also an irascible and more than occasionally mean drunk who despised himself almost as much as he did the business side...

Pros: Its continued popularity over the years
Cons: ????

There's sure plenty of it in The Wild Bunch, and that's a fact! This is probably the most famous of Sam Peckinpah's films and, for some strange reason, the one people are most reluctant to admit seeing and enjoying. Maybe they just hate to...

Pros: The Wild Bunch is a beautiful film: sad, but nevertheless uplifting, prone to moments of lyrical violence, but nevertheless deeply romantic. Sam Peckinpah never lets us forget that his protagonists are only men; what makes them heroes is their deeply roote
Cons: Gore-hounds will be disappointed.

By Max Scheinin.

When The Wild Bunch was first released, it must have looked very violent. Today, in the age of Fight Club and The Matrix, films that exist merely to pummel their relentless imagery into our faces, its lyrical bursts of...

Pros: World-class direction, action, editing, cinematography, etc.
Cons: None to speak of

Without question, Sam Peckinpah's 1969 western epic THE WILD BUNCH was one of the landmark films of the 1960s. Owing to the easing of censorship within the movie industry and the political and social turbulence America had been going through during the...

Pros: Trend-setting work, artistic and tragic
Cons: Long, sometimes incoherent; not much appeal outside of the genre

Critic Stephen Hunter described “The Wild Bunch” as the ultimate chasm movie; a film that is passionately loved by its supporters and blasphemed by its enemies. Truth be told, it is neither: “The Wild Bunch” is a beautiful Western with little appeal...

Pros: Great action scene at the end and when blowing up the bridge
Cons: Boringly cliched story of 'honor among thieves' done much better before; very little humor

Technical qualities aside and leaving out the excellent final shootout scene which slow-motion blood-ballets its way onto a higher artistic plane, the ENTIRE rest of this film is MEDIOCRE AT BEST. Not only is it NOT the greatest Western of all time, and...

Pros: Great acting, film editing and poetic violence
Cons: None

This controversial landmark western is the centerpiece of director Sam Peckinpah's up and down career. The film along with "Bonnie and Clyde" in 1967 are the epitome of beautifully made poetic violent bloodbath movies. This movie starts and ends with...