The Wild Bunch - The Original Director's Cut
by Sam Peckinpah
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DVD Cover Information
Actor: Edmond O'Brien, Ernest Borgnine, Robert Ryan, Warren Oates, William HoldenDirector: Sam Peckinpah
Brand: Warner Brothers
Cinematographer: Lucien Ballard
Writer: Sam Peckinpah
Editor: Lou Lombardo
Producer: Phil Feldman
Producer: Roy N. Sickner
Writer: Roy N. Sickner
Writer: Walon Green
DVD: 2 Sides, Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 5.1; English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); French (Subtitled)
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, Director's Cut, Dolby, DVD-Video, Letterboxed, NTSC, Widescreen
Picture Format: Letterbox, 2.35:1
Running Time: 134 minutes
DVD Release Date: 1997-05-21
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: Warner Home Video
Movie Reviews of The Wild Bunch - The Original Director's Cut
Movie Review: Finest of any Genre
Summary: 5 Stars
Simply, the finest American film to date, of any genre.
Acting, editing, scripting, scoring, cinematography, directing are all combined in the rarest of amalgams. None, standing alone, merit such praise...it is the alloying of all of these elements, forged at one time, tempered on one screen, which makes the metal.
The skill displayed in the opening credits says it all.
Summary of The Wild Bunch - The Original Director's Cut
Director sam peckinpahs masterpiece is a world class western notable for its daring cinematography and landmark violence. Studio: Warner Home Video Release Date: 06/07/2005 Starring: William Holden Run time: 145 minutes Rating: R Director: Sam PeckinpahHere's how director Sam Peckinpah described his motivation behind The Wild Bunch at the time of the film's 1969 release: "I was trying to tell a simple story about bad men in changing times. The Wild Bunch is simply what happens when killers go to Mexico. The strange thing is you feel a great sense of loss when these killers reach the end of the line." All of these statements are true, but they don't begin to cover the impact that Peckinpah's film had on the evolution of American movies. Now the film is most widely recognized as a milestone event in the escalation of screen violence, but that's a label of limited perspective. Of course, Peckinpah's bloody climactic gunfight became a masterfully directed, photographed, and edited ballet of graphic violence that transcended the conventional Western and moved into a slow-motion realm of pure cinematic intensity. But the film--surely one of the greatest Westerns ever made--is also a richly thematic tale of, as Peckinpah said, "bad men in changing times." The year is 1913 and the fading band of thieves known as the Wild Bunch (led by William Holden as Pike) decide to pull one last job before retirement. But an ambush foils their plans, and Peckinpah's film becomes an epic yet intimate tale of betrayed loyalties, tenacious rivalry, and the bunch's dogged determination to maintain their fading code of honor among thieves. The 144-minute director's cut enhances the theme of male bonding that recurs in many of Peckinpah's films, restoring deleted scenes to deepen the viewer's understanding of the friendship turned rivalry between Pike and his former friend Deke Thornton (Robert Ryan), who now leads a posse in pursuit of the bunch, a dimension that adds resonance to an already classic American film. The Wild Bunch is a masterpiece that should not be defined strictly in terms of its violence, but as a story of mythic proportion, brimming with rich characters and dialogue and the bittersweet irony of outlaw traditions on the wane. --Jeff Shannon
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
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