I keep wanting to like westerns. I can get into almost any kind of movie and above all have enjoyed discovering I really love movies I expected to hate as I move through this list. I want to love one of these these films so bad and they just keep making it so damn hard!
"The Wild Bunch" had the potential to really pull me in. There is a really interesting metaphor played out during the opening credits as some kids feed a scorpion to a colony of ants- which to me suggested that if a bunch of underdogs pull together with a common goal, they can overtake a seemingly insurmountable opponent. This combined with the eerily silent build up to the robbery-gone-wrong that leads to an intense and awesome gunfight scene REALLY sucked me in... until it started to just suck.
Even after the robbery is thwarted, even after the group of desperadoes finds out their big score is actually a bag full of washers, even after Pike, the leader of the group played by the amazing William Holden pulls the group back together after some internal squabbles, the gang the film focuses on shows no real likable qualities or even interesting ones. Though they speak of loyalty to each other and codes of honor, they seemingly have none. During the opening robbery scene the group leaves one of their own men behind, not just any man, the grandson of one of their allies, making him think he is just covering for them but knowing all along he is just distracting the authorities while they escape. There is even an exchange where they wind up sarcastically debating whether or not they should provide a dead gang member with a burial, which is dismissed as foolish. However, all the while they continue to posture as some sort of band of brothers.
"I don't know a damn thing, except I either lead this bunch, or end it right now!" (Pike Bishop, "The Wild Bunch")
The leader of the deputized gang out to get the Wild Bunch is Pike's former friend, Deke Thornton, who not only wants to collect the bounty on the gang, but also has more at stake as he is an ex-con who risks going back to prison in Yuma if he doesn't succeed. Though he is working for the law, even Deke illustrates the backstabbing traits every character seems to have.
Pike and his closest partner Dutch are (Spoiler alert)getting too old for this game- gee, I've never seen THAT theme in a western before this one *wink wink* and have plans on one last big score that they can retire on. They strike up a deal with the Federales to hijack a military shipment of guns n' ammo, sell it to them and be on their way. The subplot involves the obligatory minority in the gang (another played-out western film contrivance- in this case, a Mexican outlaw named Angel) agreeing to sacrifice his share of the score in exchange for a small fraction of the weapons to go to his village to defend themselves, ironically from the same people they are delivering the guns to. Even Pike, who does still seem to have some honor identifies himself as a shifty bloke as well when Angel questions the morality of arming the people who killed his family. Pike's crass response is "$10,000 cuts a lot of family ties."
With Deke hot on their trail the gang piles one shady deed on top of another as they leave behind a trail of debauchery and general throw-under-the-bus-ery. So much so that Dutch freely hands over Angel to the Federales. It is this deed and it's aftermath that lead to the most half-assed redemption effort I've ever committed to film. The Bunch decides to march into certain death in an effort to rescue Angel from the Mexican General, despite the fact that they have already let him be tortured and drug by a car to near-death for several days. The final gun battle which might even be cooler than the opening one bookends an otherwise sub par movie.
I understand the principle of having anti-heroes as protagonists in films, as I have said before, flawed humans are far more believable and likable than cheesily perfect good guys. However in the case of "The Wild Bunch" there are just too many negative qualities for us to care about them. Their whole new degree of bastardness puts them on the same level as the typical henchmen/goons who work for the main antagonist in any other film- thus they are not only unlikeable, but uninteresting.
The slight physical resemblance between Pike and Deke, their similar names and the overly frequent jump-editing in this film makes it hard to tell at times as to which one of them we are watching when a new scene starts. Had it not been SO obvious this would have been a good directorial tool; illustrating the closeness that remains between the men and showing how evenly matched they are. Instead it is just frustrating and a little confusing.
In keeping with the old adage "save the best for last" I am now going to delve into the good aspects of "The Wild Bunch" that I can truly appreciate. The gunfights are gory and intense, a far cry from the westerns and for that matter any kind of movie that depicted a violent action, of the times- instead opting to show sanitized and unrealistic accounts of death. "The Wild Bunch" put that production tactic in a pine-box and set the tone for movies as diverse as "Braveheart" to "The Texas Chainsaw Massacare." That's all.
No, that wasn't my thoughtless and lazy way of writing a summary paragraph, I literally mean that's all as far as good things I can say about this film.
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