Wild Bunch, The, is one of the most controversial and praised Western motion pictures ever made. Many viewers and critics condemned the movie’s extreme violence. Others praised the film’s expressive use of that violence. Critics also acclaimed the movie’s portrait of a vanishing Western culture. The Wild Bunch was released in 1969 and directed by Sam Peckinpah.
The Wild Bunch takes place in 1914, as the era of the Wild West is drawing to a close. The film deals with a group of aging outlaws working in Texas and Mexico. Time is passing them by, partly because of the advance of modern civilization and partly because of the development of new law-enforcement methods. The outlaws try to rob a railway office in a Texas border town, but they fall into an ambush by bounty hunters. The outlaws flee into Mexico, where they try to rob a train and where they have another gory battle, this time with Mexican bandits. By the end of the film, most of the major characters have been killed.
The movie became celebrated, or notorious, for its scenes of bloody shootouts, some filmed in slow motion. Admirers of the film saw those scenes as poetic and a legitimate method of portraying the violence of the outlaw world. Critics stated that the scenes merely wallowed in violence and savagery for their own sake. The success of The Wild Bunch led to the vivid use of violence in other action films, sometimes using Peckinpah’s slow-motion technique.
The Wild Bunch features the veteran Hollywood stars Ernest Borgnine, William Holden, Edmond O’Brien, and Robert Ryan. Supporting roles are played by Albert Dekker, Ben Johnson, Strother Martin, and Warren Oates.
See also Peckinpah, Sam .
