The Wild Bunch

1969's THE WILD BUNCH is director Sam Peckinpah's finest hour to my eyes.  A nearly perfect bloodstained elegy to the old codes of the Old West.  It unfolds in a new century among despicable men who bemoan the changing times yet have fallen to its evil ways.  Men who leave their compadres to die in the name of....getting away with the gold.   Away from the jailers.  But these outlaws still have glimmers of a conscience, though by the time they may act on it all will be lost.  If that is a spoiler for you, read no further.

1913. Pike Bishop (William Holden) leads a group of criminals into town to rob a railroad office of its silver.  He did not anticipate his old partner Deke Thornton's (Robert Ryan) presence with a dozen or so bounty hunters perched on the roof in sniper position across the way.  The first of two ultraviolent shootouts in THE WILD BUNCH will sear the screen, with many innocent civilians in its wake.  There's been discussion of Peckinpah's efforts to create a Vietnam metaphor with this picture, so there you are.

Bishop, Ensgtrom (Ernest Borgnine), Lyle (Warren Oates) and Tector (Ben Johnson) Gulch, and Angel (Jaime Sanchez) shoot their way out of the carnage only to discover they've been hoodwinked - their cache is a bag of steel washers.  So much for the oft desired "final score."   On the way to Mexico, the men stay in Angel's homestead.  In a game changing flash, Angel spots his former girlfriend in the arms of the murderous General Mapache (Emilio Fernandez) who rules the village, and shoots her dead. Pike sees a deal to be made to make peace and another bid for a final payday.  How it ultimately turns out is for you to discover, invisible audience, though I doubt it's a secret among anyone who's at least heard of this movie that it involves a lot of rounds and spurting blood.

And the death of a way of life.  The signs were there.  Note the men's faces when Mapache rides into town in an automobile, which may as well be science fiction in 1913.  Or the discovery of a machine gun during a train robbery.  It too is new fangled, but surprisingly Pike is eager to learn how to use the damned thing.  Its apocalyptic spray during this film's celebrated, astonishingly shot and edited climax announces THE WILD BUNCH's themes for those who may have not gotten it thus far.  For good measure, a young Mexican puts the final cap into Pike.  It's a new West.

John Wayne panned this movie for its brutal takedown of Hollywood Western mythos.  After years of such sanitized fairy tales filling movie screens, Peckinpah lowered the boom and gave audiences a taste of How it Was.  Probably more of the time than we'd like to think.  THE WILD BUNCH is a classic for its iconic performances and technical brilliance, but also as an announcement of a new Hollywood, one that increasingly refused to put a sheen on history.