Wild Bunch

UPC: 085391142669

Studio: Warner Home Video

MPAA Rating: R   Contains:[Graphic Violence, Not For Children]

Summary: "If they move, kill 'em!" Beginning and ending with two of the bloodiest battles in screen history, Sam Peckinpah's classic revisionist Western ruthlessly takes apart the myths of the West. Released in the late '60s discord over Vietnam, in the wake of the controversial Bonnie and Clyde (1967) and the brutal "spaghetti westerns" of Sergio Leone, The Wild Bunch polarized critics and audiences over its ferocious bloodshed. One side hailed it as a classic appropriately pitched to the violence and nihilism of the times, while the other reviled it as depraved. After a failed payroll robbery, the outlaw Bunch, led by aging Pike Bishop (William Holden) and including Dutch (Ernest Borgnine), Angel (Jaime Sanchez), and Lyle and Tector Gorch (Warren Oates and Ben Johnson), heads for Mexico pursued by the gang of Pike's friend-turned-nemesis Deke Thornton (Robert Ryan). Ultimately caught between the corruption of railroad fat cat Harrigan (Albert Dekker) and federale general Mapache (Emilio Fernandez), and without a frontier for escape, the Bunch opts for a final Pyrrhic victory, striding purposefully to confront Mapache and avenge their friend Angel. ~ Lucia Bozzola, Rovi

Category: Western

Awards: 100 Greatest American Movies – American Film Institute U.S. National Film Registry – Library of Congress Best Director – Directors Guild of America Best Original Screenplay – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Best Original Screenplay – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Best Original Screenplay – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Best Original Score – Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences

Features: Commentary by Peckinpah Biographers/Documentarians Nick Redman, Paul Seydor, Garner Simmons and David Weddle
Additonal Scenes
3 Documentaries: Sam Peckinpah's West: Legacy of a Hollywood Renegade, 1996 Oscar Nominee The Wild Bunch: An Album in Montage, Excerpt From a Simple Adventure Story: Sam Peckinpah, Mexico and the Wild Bunch, a Documentary Film by Nick Redman
Peckinpah Movie Trailer Gallery.

Wild Bunch

Format: Blu-ray

Release Date: 09/25/2007

Aspect Ratio: 2.40:1 2.40:1

Audio: DD5.1 Dolby Digital 5.1, DD2 Dolby Digital Stereo

Runtime: 145 Minutes

Sides: 1

Number of Discs: 1

Language(s) English,French,Spanish

Subtitles: English,French,Spanish

Lucia Bozzola

From the opening image of children happily watching fire ants kill a scorpion, Sam Peckinpah presents a relentlessly pessimistic view of frontier life in 1913 as it gives way to modernity; any sense of honor is strictly relative, and "civilization" means venal businessmen and mercenaries. The western's myth of "righteous" violence is literally blasted to pieces in the two battle sequences evocative of the 1968-69 carnage in Vietnam. In elaborately edited montages using different camera speeds and distances, Peckinpah and cinematographer Lucien Ballard show what it looks like when bullets hit flesh, drawing out moments of death amidst bloody chaos in a balletic yet repellent spectacle. The Wild Bunch eventually became a moderate hit, and it got Oscar nominations for Jerry Fielding's score and Walon Green's and Peckinpah's script. Unsatisfied with Peckinpah's 145-minute cut, Warner Bros. pulled the film after its debut and shaved 10 minutes of exposition but left the violence intact. The footage was fully restored in 1995. With its stunning technical finesse and uncompromising view of the West's bloody demise, The Wild Bunch remains one of the most powerful "last" westerns ever made. ~ Lucia Bozzola, Rovi

Cast and Crew: Rene Dupeyron  Actor 
Elsa Cardenas  Actor 
Margarito Luna  Actor 
Paul Harper  Actor 
Jorge Russek  Actor 
Fernando Wagner  Actor 
Rayford Barnes  Actor 
Aurora Clavel  Actor 
Enrique Lucero  Actor 
Alfonso Arau  Actor 
Bill Hart  Actor 
Pedro Galvan  Actor 
Chano Urueta  Actor 
Sonia Amelio  Actor 
Phil Feldman  Producer 
Jerry Fielding  Composer (Music Score) 
Walon Green  Screenwriter 
Sam Peckinpah  Director 
Sam Peckinpah  Screenwriter 
Paul Seydor  Director 
Paul Seydor  Producer 
Paul Seydor  Screenwriter 
Nick Redman  Producer 
William Holden  Actor 
Ernest Borgnine  Actor 
Robert Ryan  Actor 
Edmond O'Brien  Actor 
Warren Oates  Actor 
Jaime Sanchez  Actor 
Ben Johnson  Actor 
Emilio Fernández  Actor 
Strother Martin  Actor 
L.Q. Jones  Actor 
Albert Dekker  Actor 
Bo Hopkins  Actor 
Dub Taylor  Actor 

Country: USA