Rating: 
Summary: The Greatest Western Of All Time
Review: Sam Peckinpah's extremely violent masterpice is stunning in every way. Performances,photography,editing,directing and thats only skiming the top of this great western. A word of warning before you see this film, it contains graphic violence and is for mature audences only.
Rating:
Summary: A classic!
Review: When released in 1969 this Peckinpahs movie was strongly critizised for the graphic violence it contains, but by todays standards it is nothing special in regards to violence. It is still a masterpiece though. The story is about a group of aging outlaws opposed by a group of bountyhunters. The outlaws pulls a bungled heist, and escapes to Mexico and lands in the middle of the civil unrest that was ever present in Mexico at the start of the century. Not only do they have to deal with the corrupt Mexican officials and revolutionaries but also with the ever present danger of their trackers. The cast is an image of the perfect. All actors seem to interact perfectly in their roles.
What makes this movie different from other american westerns is the absence of any real "good" or "evil", none of the characters are one-dimensional, and all are working towards their own goals. Good deeds are done, but so are acts of brutality. This is truly a classic where everything seems to work. I especialy enjoy the showdown sequence at the end of the movie, but I will not expose it here. Highly recomended!
Rating:
Summary: A feast for the eyes and ears
Review: This film is one of the best ever made- the acting and directing are both powerful and spontaneous- in an age where special effects are used to divert your attention from the fact that the plot stinks, the actors are weak, the director just wants a paycheck, and that you are a sap, this film is able to captivate your attention for nearly three hours. After watching films like this you will never go back to the theatres to see some newly released junk, when actors such as Bill Holden are a click away on your remote control.
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Summary: Before John Woo...there was Sam Peckinpah
Review: 'The Wild Bunch' is the ground-breaking film that set the new standard for many of the Westerns and Action Flicks that are made today. Made more than thirty years ago, the film and filmaker's visual and story-telling style is used time and time again by some of todays renowned action directors like John Woo and Walter Hill.
One of the ground-breaking elements of 'TWB' is the realism behind the on-screen violence of this picture. 'TWB' was one of the first westerns where there was 'blood-letting' in the gunfight scenes. When someone is shot, blood would spurt or spill simutaneously from the wound in a morbid display. Add slow motion cinematography to it and the audience is treated to very ferocious, yet sensational on-screen action that's almost 'balletic'. As gratitous as the violence may seem, however, it is not violence for the sake of violence. It's the method used by directors today worldwide to illustrate violence that satisfies more mature and sofisticated audiences. Set during 1913 in Texas, just before America went into WWI, 'TWB' is about the unity of a band of outlaws led by Pike Bishop(william Holden) after realizing they did not score big from the bloody bank job they just pulled. So they decide to ride further south and soon meet Mapache, a self-proclaimed Mexican 'Generale' who has it all (wealth, women, booze, and an army) and is an enemy of the legendary Poncho Villa. The General offers Pike's posse a job - to rob a train transporting US Army rifles and explosives to use against Villa. Seduced by the money, booze, and women, Pike's gang takes the job in hopes of it being their last big score. However it won't be so easy. Hot on Pike's trail is Deke Thornton (Robert Ryan), a convict and Pike's former partner in crime, now working with the law to bring down Pike and his posse in exchange for freedom.
Some other themes of 'TWB' that are often reused in action and western films to come are that of 'honor among thieves' and the 'amoral cowboy'. There is no longer a clear boundry between good and bad, and black and white. 'TWB' puts you in a 'grey' area about the values of honor, loyalty, and duty among men.
This film is an absolute must-see for fans of western and/or action.
Rating:
Summary: Brilliant
Review: William Holden plays the leader of a group of outlaws who decide to do one final heist. Featuring great acting,direction,cinematography, & awesome editing,this movie is terrific to watch.Controversial in its day,Peckinpah used gallons of stage blood,& an inumerable amount of bullet squibs to create the film's climax:A gun battle of gargantuan proportions.Due to Peckinpah's awesome use of widescreen,be sure it letterboxed.
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Summary: Peckinpah's epic
Review: Unquestionably the greatest film that Sam Peckinpah directed, this is also one of the great American movies of the 20th century. This epic western about the last days of a ruthless gang of outlaws along the Texas-Mexico line in 1913 remains world-class to this day. William Holden and Ernest Borgnine give their usual sterling performances as the leaders of the Bunch, with Peckinpah stalwarts Warren Oates and Ben Johnson as the Gorches. Edmond O'Brien gives us his Gabby Hayes best as the elder participant in the group. And the sometimes underrated Robert Ryan is excellent as the sympathetic heavy, who must go after Holden under threat of a life in jail, and do so with a scummy group of bounty hunters (including Strother Martin and L.Q. Jones) he calls "gutter trash."THE WILD BUNCH is also blessed with great cinematography by the legendary Lucien Ballard, a fine score by Jerry Fielding, and world-class editing. But a review of this movie wouldn't be complete, of course, without discussing the film's extreme and intense violence, particularly in the battle between the Bunch and Emilio Fernandez's Mexican federales that concludes the film. The emotional and visceral impact of that sequence is still incredible, edited as a cascading montage of blood and slow-motion. In fact, this editing style, which was to become Peckinpah's trademark, resulted in this film having something like 3,600 different cuts, the most in any film up to that time (perhaps of ALL time!). Often imitated in its violence but never duplicated in its influence, THE WILD BUNCH is a distinctly American epic and, along with 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY and BONNIE AND CLYDE, remains not only a groundbreaking film of the 1960s, but a groundbreaking movie for eternity.
Rating: 
Summary: If You've Only Seen One Western Then This Could be the Best
Review: Review Tag: If You've Only Seen One Western Then This Could be the Best Movie Summary: A dwindling band of aging outlaws is finding it harder and harder to find that last big score. The railroad they used to find as easy pickings has coerced one of their own into tracking them down and bringing them in. With him hot on their heels, they head across the boarder to Mexico where they make a deal with a crooked general that should give them enough money to retire on. But things are never easy and crooked generals don't make good business partners. My Opinion: Overrated with a capital "O" as well as over long. I didn't find much of the honor among thieves that other reviews touted. For example, as soon as Pike shows a small amount of weakness, other members of the group are ready to abandon him and take his place. All five of the "bunch" are losers (since when is five a bunch anyway?). I found it hard to believe that they made it that long and were able to get so old. They seemed pretty inept to me. There weren't any "good guys" in this movie. There was no one to root for or against, or to care about one way or the other. When this happens for me, a movie just becomes pointless. Even what is suppose to be their redeeming act at the end to save their "friend" comes across as weak. They wait too long and Angel is almost dead anyway. The evil that they manage to remove in the massive gun fight doesn't seem to give any real hope to Mexico either. Although the big gun fight scene may have been groundbreaking at the time, I find it just doesn't make this movie into a classic all by itself. DVD Quality: Non Anamorphic 2.35:1, DD5.1 Extra include Trailers, Production notes, and a documentary. Why do they bother fixing up a movie if they aren't going to make it anamorphic? What You Should Do: See it if you are a Western fan and haven't seen it yet. Related Movies To Check Out: Unforgiven, The Outlaw Josey Whales, Silverado, Rio Bravo, El Dorado, Jeremiah Johnson, The Good The Bad and The Ugly, Big Jake, True Grit, Pale Rider, Red River, The Magnificent Seven
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Summary: Wild movie for a wild time.
Review: Seminal 1960's Western about a gang of outlaws searching for one last score. Director Sam Peckinpah threw everything into this one: existential angst, mid-life regret, the fading away of bad old values (to be replaced by bad NEW values), the horror of violence, the Vietnam War, the assassination trifecta of the Kennedy Bros. + MLK Jr., the whole decade, the whole damned bloody kitchen sink. The famed violence in the movie comes across as a stern lecture by Peckinpah . . . but hey, it's a valid point, all too often ignored in American cinema: namely, Violence Hurts. (However, the younger generation won't be too impressed by the slo-mo and flying streams of blood -- there's considerably less of the latter than the movie's reputation would indicate. But understand this, kids: without *The Wild Bunch*, John Woo and any other action director from Hong Kong would be making very different movies today. Give the credit where it's due.) On the acting end of things: William Holden gives the performance of his life as Pike, the leader of the holdup gang. His opposite number, Robert Ryan, who leads a posse of bounty hunters who are after Pike & Co., is also outstanding. Both men are equally disgusted with the new 20th century, and who can blame them. One of the essential movies of the 1960's.
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Summary: Most unique and nature work
Review: I think it's more important learn about Sam Peckinpah's personality and his works before saying anything about The Wild Bunch. He's known as the director of violence but he's always on the side of suffering people. Isn't it always the poor and the weak who face agony? He uses the slow motion technique very effectively while telling their stories. This technique intensifies the effect of violence. The wild bunch tells the story of a group of miserable people who have no choice other than robbery. Besides thier unsuccessful attempt they find themselves in the middle of the Mexican Civil War.The talented actors along with Sam Peckinpah's special tecnique contribute a lot to the movie. Fans of this kind of movies can easily be impressed by the Wild Bunch. The characters Peckinpah uses in his movies symbolize violence, death, vulgarism as wel as pride, courage and devotion. The Wild Bunch consists of a group of people who died for nothing at a war which they had nothing to do with. There's a group who criticizes the slow motion technique Peckinpah uses. He defends himself by saying: "Especially in my westerns I tried to emphasize certain points. I tried to change the story of violent people by giving them extraordinary and poetical characteristics. I did this on purpose to critisize violence. The Wild Bunch is Sam Packinpah's most unique and nature work. The war in which the Wild Bunch fights is full of horror and blood. In this movie it's as if Peckinpah is trying to create the choreography of violence in the art of movie making. If you believe violence is the density of the poor and the weak, I recommend you to watch this movie. Otherwise stay away...
Rating: 
Summary: * for DVD ***** for film
Review: Terrible print of a classic revisionist western. Grain all over the place, blurriness. This is definately inferior to the w/s VHS pal region 2 released in the uk in 1996. Dissapointing especially since it's one of peckinpah's best films as well.
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