Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #30484 in DVD
• Released on: 2006-08-07
• Rating: Suitable for 18 years and over
• Format: PAL
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 2
• Running time: 134 minutes

Synopsis
As a counterpoint to the heroic horde of THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN, the ageing gunmen of Sam Peckinpah's masterpiece break the very laws of honour which bind them in this bloody and meditative tale of the American West widely considered to be the self-conscious nail in the coffin of the genre. William Holden, Robert Ryan, and Ernest Borgnine star as the leaders of a grizzled crew of Texan bandits who ride to Mexico, where, one by one, they are unceremoniously slaughtered by a Mexican revolutionary. The western, a genre steeped in legend and the concept of loyalty, was a dying breed when Sam Peckinpah unleashed this amoral and violent opus. Along with BONNIE AND CLYDE, it ushered in a new breed of Hollywood film, depicting a harsh reality where lines between right and wrong became blurred. Peckinpah brilliantly used ageing Western stars such as Ryan and Holden to convey this passing of the cinematic torch. The film brought issues of violence and morality in movies to the forefront of American film criticism. Instead of appreciating the film as a critique of brutal violence, many critics responded by rejecting what they saw as a superfluous spectacle of dead bodies.

Customer Reviews

Very powerful and dark
This is one of Peckinpah's most powerful movies.

Its set in the Mexican revolution and its said that the crew/actors fired more bullets in the making of this film than in the actual Revolution!!

As the blurd says its a counter to the Magnificent Seven, these characters are not heroes they are bank robbers and mercenary in the same kind of way that the Man with No Name is in the Sergio Leone films. You dont want them to succeed but you kind of do too. This film blurs the line between the Good Guys and Bad Guys. In the opening robbery scenes the bad guys are ruthless but more likeable in many ways while the bounty hunters who ambush them and who are hunting them down are "redneck white trash" who rush to strip bodies of clothes, boots, weapons and valuables even on the public street.

In the end the "bad guys" characters, the wild bunch, act like the Magnifcent Seven and do the right thing, attempting to rescue their friend from huge odds; the Mexican General and his Army and march towards their fate and their eventual deaths.

The opening scene, the bank robbery is riveting and explosive, (the body count must be impressive too) and it ends with a bloody finale, four men take on a small army! Its a great powerful realistic western from a great director.