The Wild Bunch
Photo: Courtesy of Warner Brothers/Seven ArtsThe Wild Bunch
  • Film

The Wild Bunch

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Time Out says

From the opening sequence, in which a circle of laughing children poke at a scorpion writhing in a sea of ants, to the infamous blood-spurting finale, Peckinpah completely rewrites John Ford's Western mythology - by looking at the passing of the Old West from the point of view of the marginalised outlaws rather than the law-abiding settlers. Though he spares us none of the callousness and brutality of Holden and his gang, Peckinpah nevertheless presents their macho code of loyalty as a positive value in a world increasingly dominated by corrupt railroad magnates and their mercenary killers (Holden's old buddy Ryan). The flight into Mexico, where they virtually embrace their death at the hands of double-crossing general Fernandez and his rabble army, is a nihilistic acknowledgment of the men's anachronistic status. In purely cinematic terms, the film is a savagely beautiful spectacle, Lucien Ballard's superb cinematography complementing Peckinpah's darkly elegiac vision.

Release Details

  • Duration:145 mins

Cast and crew

  • Director:Sam Peckinpah
  • Screenwriter:Sam Peckinpah, Walon Green
  • Cast:
    • Edmond O'Brien
    • Strother Martin
    • Ben Johnson
    • Warren Oates
    • LQ Jones
    • William Holden
    • Jaime Sanchez
    • Bo Hopkins
    • Emilio Fernandez
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