The Wild Bunch . Austin Chronicle . 08-10-98

The Wild Bunch

DIRECTED BY: Sam Peckinpah

REVIEWED: 08-10-98

It's true that more rounds were consumed during the filming of The Wild Bunch than during the entire Mexican Revolution, and that Peckinpah's terrifying and beautiful ballets of death set the standard for 30 years of violence in film, but neither of these remarkable facts account for the power and majesty of this epic Western. Emotionally and philosophically complex, The Wild Bunch tells the story of Old West outlaws in a world where horses and Winchesters are being replaced by automobiles and machine guns, where bandit heroes with a macho code of loyalty are being replaced by the soulless killers. Pike (Holden) and his bunch attempt their last big hit when they are ambushed by a sad-faced former partner (Ryan) and his vile gang of bounty hunters. They flee to Mexico where they stumble onto a lucrative opportunity to rob a U.S. Army munitions train for a corrupt Mexican general. Here again, things don't go completely as planned. Three thrilling action sequences occupy the beginning, middle and end of this film, and the treatment of violence in each revolutionized filmmaking. The slow-motion cinematography and quick-cut editing, though, come off not as gimmicks but as serious meditations on man's simultaneous horror and fascination with death and gore. Although this existential poetry of images gives the film stunning visual value, it's really the development of the characters, the exploration of a creed in a moral vacuum, in short, the quiet scenes that give emotional resonance to the meaninglessness of the violence and make The Wild Bunch an unforgettable movie.

--Jason Zech

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