Monday, July 13, 2009

79. THE WILD BUNCH (1969)

TOP 100 FILMS OF ALL TIME - THE WILD BUNCH

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com essential video
One of the best action movies ever made, in a cleaned-up print restoring crucial parts of the story. No cavalry ever rode in with more epochal impact than the Wild Bunch in the legendary opening scene. Their steel-eyed leader, Pike (William Holden), and his robbers in stolen army uniforms help an old lady across the street, and then spark a massacre led by Pike's old crony Thornton (Robert Ryan), sprung from jail to hunt down his old gang.

In just a few minutes, Sam Peckinpah sets the scene--a dusty Texas town in 1913--sketches a dozen vividly individualized characters, and choreographs one of the most realistic, influential, brilliantly photographed shootouts under the pitiless sun. The cast is superb (even Ernest Borgnine!), the dialog crackling, the bitterly ambiguous moral of the story hard-earned. It's the deeper, dark flip side to 1969's Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. Consider buying the letterbox Wild Bunch, the review collection Doing It Right, and the Peckinpah bio "If They Move... Kill 'Em!" --Tim Appelo

Product Details

  • Actors: Alfonso Arau, Ernest Borgnine, Elsa Cárdenas, Albert Dekker, Emilio Fernández
  • Format: AC-3, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, Full Screen, Special Edition, Subtitled, Widescreen, NTSC
  • Language: French (Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround), English (Dolby Digital 5.1)
  • Subtitles: English, Spanish, French
  • Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  • Aspect Ratio: 2.40:1
  • Number of discs: 2
  • Rating: R (Restricted)
  • Studio: Warner Home Video
  • DVD Release Date: January 10, 2006
  • Run Time: 134 minutes