The Wild Bunch (1969)

Written by Walon Green & Sam Peckinpah

Directed by Sam Peckinpah

1998 List Ranking: 80

2007 List Ranking: 79

The Wild Bunch, which closes out the 1960’s for this list, is, perhaps unsurprisingly, another Western. While apparently only the 9th Western on the list so far, it FEELS as if there has been so many more. I suppose I can’t blame the American Film Institute for a perception, but it does feel rather annoying to have this genre continually popping up.

(I do admit to some curiosity as to whether I would feel so aggravated if a different genre, like one I liked more, was popping up as frequently as Westerns feel like they are. My guess is probably not, but I guess we’ll never know)

The Wild Bunch

The Wild Bunch is a motley crew of outlaws who must confront their place in a changing world. After escaping a set-up at a bank (in which a bloodbath of innocent people results), the gang flees to Mexico. There, I guess they contract with a Mexican warlord who is fighting Pancho Villa, there’s some double crosses, and it all ends in an even BIGGER bloodbath. Now, I say “I guess” because once the gang gets to Mexico, there are huge portions of the film spoken in Spanish, and with no subtitles! The Wikipedia plot summary helped a great deal, but I definitely have to ding the film for it.

(There’s also a subplot about a former member of the gang now being on the side of the law and tracking the gang, but that doesn’t really go anywhere, other than as a minor obstacle midway through the film)

William Holden as Pike Bishop

Leading the gang is William Holden, looking much more older and grizzled than in his last appearance in Sunset Boulevard. Here, his Pike Bishop is struggling to hold onto the outlaw life he’s known while watching the world modernize around him. I’ll touch on that more in just a moment, but I have to say that I wasn’t particularly mesmerized by his performance. He spends the bulk of the film looking squinty and wistful, so he isn’t really doing the theme of the film any justice. Thankfully, he’s accompanied by Ernest Borgnine, who is always a pleasure to watch. He doesn’t really get much character work (frankly, no one does), but he does alright with the limited material he’s given.

What makes this film so disappointing to me is that there is a great theme embedded within it, but the film just doesn’t really do anything with it. Watching “the way things were” being replaced by the shiny and new is such great material for emotion and pathos, especially because throughout our lives we experience it: at some point, we turn and look around and see that things have changed. Ever gone back to something from your childhood? That feeling of the rush of memory and the lament of the unstoppable progress of change is exactly what this film should have tapped into, but unfortunately it just didn’t.

Pike on the machine gun during the film’s climax

Not that it doesn’t try, at least. There are some interesting thematic choices made, such as (SPOILER ALERT) Pike dying while using the machine gun for the first time during the film’s climatic bloodbath. I suppose a stronger choice would have been to have him be killed by the machine gun instead of using it (as presented, the film seems to be saying “embrace the new and you’ll die!”, which…I mean, I guess that’s accurate? The old you dies?); as I reflect, perhaps him getting killed by the machine gun is a cliche. Also, the theme is summed up nicely in the end when a character states “It ain’t like it used to be, but it’ll do”. We see this throughout the film as new technology comes in and replaces the old (the machine gun for the rifle, the car for the horse). It’s not the greatest, but I see where they were going with it.

One of the film’s (allegedly) iconic scenes

The film is also pretty graphic, perhaps more so than Bonnie and Clyde: The final bloodbath is full of violence and 1960’s gore (I mean, it’s got nothing on what’s coming up later on this list, but you get the idea). It’s just another example, as we saw in the Best Pictures list, of the changing views of the world (which is pretty on brand for this film anyway).

After a thrilling opening, the film slows WAY down into a character piece, which would be interesting if the characters really did anything or if they gave us a reason to care about them. Pike has not been given any motivation for us to care about in terms of his acceptance of the changing world: while we can identify with the feeling, there is still nothing for us to personally attach to him. What does he stand to lose if the world changes? The film isn’t clear, so we sympathize but don’t empathize with him. It’s nice to see Westerns start to move away from the black-and-white dichotomy of “cowboys & sheriffs good, everyone else bad” that early Westerns are plagued with, but this film takes its interesting ideas and fumbles with them the entire way.

FINAL GRADE: C-