Cheap The Wild Bunch [Region 2] (DVD) (Sam Peckinpah) Price

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Customer Reviews of The Wild Bunch [Region 2]

One Of The Top Four Westerns
The Wild Bunch is in the top four westerns of all time, the first being High Noon, the second being Shane, and then The Wild Bunch and last being Silverado. All four had a positive message in each of them even though The Wild Bunch had the most violence. I saw this movie when it first came out and being in my late teens early twenties it had a major impact on me it was just before going into the service with the war raging in Vietnam and the protests going on here in the United States, my generation never saw that kind of violence while we were growing up the actors got shot at and just fell down there was never any blood or bullet holes in the bad guy. <
>The message that I took from this movie and I still live by it today is best summed up by Pike and that is you do what is right no matter what, and you stick by your friends to the end. <
>Sadly in this day and age the younger generations that have followed don't it is all about them and what is in it for them. <
>The DVD looked great and there were a couple of scenes put back in that you don't see on TV.

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Bloody eye candy
This bloody extravaganza made Sam Peckinpah's reputation. A kind of fantasy of machismo set along the Texas-Mexico border around 1913--yes, very late for a Western--The Wild Bunch has thrilled adolescent boys and twentysomethings for almost four decades. The slowmo shots of horses falling awkwardly, of bodies squirting blood as they fall off of roof tops or cliffs, of tough hombres talking tough while they grab loose women and bottles of booze replete with numerous other bits of acrobatic mayhem amid some fantastic scenery makes this a non-cerebral feast for the eyes. The stars, William Holden (Pike Bishop), Ernest Borgnine (Dutch Engstrom), Robert Ryan (Deke Thornton), Edmund O'Brien (Freddie Sykes), etc. are first rate and on form. The plot is a variant of the old "one last job" story which begins with Pike's not-quite over-the-hill gang doing one last bank robbery. <
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>Needless to say something goes wrong. Interspersed between the opening credits we see Pike's gang ride into town dressed as members of the US Army Calvary. On roof tops are some rascals and scallywags with rifles, missing teeth, and murderous gleams in their eyes. They are led by Deke Thornton, who it turns out is working for the railroad. What follows is a good old fashioned shoot 'em up of rather unlikely proportions as Pike's gang exists the bank with bags of loot, dodging and slinging bullets with abandon. <
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>Turns out...well, no I won't say because I don't want to spoil the surprise. Suffice it to say, they need to do another job, this one a good old-fashioned train robbery with a few tricks and extras, like blowing up a bridge and running a locomotive at full throttle backwards. And then across the border into Mexico and some fun and games with Mexican generals, senoritas, banditos and such. <
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>Been there, done that. But Peckinpah's colorful yarn has a few things you might not have seen before, and some of those things that you have seen, he did first and better. The Mexican color with a lot of authentic-looking extras doing authentic-looking Mexican activities was good. The fact that the Spanish spoken was not translated (and didn't need to be translated) was good. General Mapache (Emilio Fernandez) as the drunken, power-hungry warlord bandito was good. The kids feeding scorpions to the ants and then burning them was good. Edmund O'Brien as a degenerate Gabby Hayes kind of character was a hoot and a holler. But mostly this was about grim-faced men, toughened by long hours in saddle under the hot sun who, after decades of outlawing, finally ride gloriously into that last battle. Next stop: boot hill. <
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>I watched the "original director's cut" that runs 145 minutes. At no time was my brain involved, but my eyes couldn't stop watching.

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The Wild Bunch
Maverick director Sam Peckinpah released this blood-soaked western ballet in 1969, at the height of the Vietnam War, igniting protests over his graphic depiction of violence. Yet some images, like the opening sequence of children watching a nest of fire ants attack a scorpion, have a cruel poetic force. Boasting a powerhouse veteran cast and virtually non-stop action, this mesmerizing film is not for the squeamish, but fans of pure western action and gunplay should cherish this pounding, hard-edged film.