Iconic and violent western by blood and guts master Sam Peckinpah.
It's 1916 and the days of the old west are numbered. A group of ageing outlaws ride into town dressed as soldiers and after one last score, but it's a set-up and a bloody shoot-out ensues. Bank robbers, townspeople and even horses are all killed in the mayhem but a number of the 'Bunch' escape, hotly pursued by bounty hunters and an ex member of the gang. They make their way to Mexico, stopping off at one of their number's home village. After meeting with Mexican General Mapache they agree to rob a train for the guns it contains. Things initially go as planned but when Angel, one of the gang, sees his woman with the General he looses his cool and shoots her. They get him out of there but the General doesn't forget and it leads to a final and bloody confrontation on a grand scale.
Starring William Holden, Ernest Borgnine and Robert Ryan, this film is widely held to be one of the top ten westerns ever made. Peckinpah went all out in the action from the outset, they're said to have used around 90,000 blank rounds during filming, and the use of a mass gun battle to open the film, something that would normally close a movie, is suggestive of a running theme of an ending of a way of life. William Holden (Bridge on the River Kwai, Sunset Blvd.) is very good as Pike, the leader of the Bunch, as is Robert Ryan who plays the old friend coerced into tracking them but it's the co-stars who pull the whole thing together. Ernest Borgnine, Warren Oates, Strother Martin and L.Q. Jones are always good and Ben Johnson, a genuine cowboy and rodeo world champion, along with Emilio Fernández give the film some authenticity. Fernández was a real soldier for Huerta in the 1923 revolution and after being captured he escaped to America before becoming one of Mexico's greatest actors and directors.
Some of the movies best known scenes, the train robbery and the famous 'walk' to get Angel, were ad-libs by the actors and the majority of the Mexican soldiers in the final shoot-out were real Mexican cavalry hired from a local barracks.
I've said before that I think over 2 hours is too long for most movies and if I'm honest I'd say the same for this one but the action keeps it going and there's nothing that feels superfluous.
Ben Johnson once said that the girls that he and Oates bathe with in the wine were real prostitutes hired from a local brothel so that Peckinpah could tell people that Warner Bros. got hookers for the cast.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0065214/?ref_=nm_knf_t3
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