The Western genre was effectively killed off by Sam Peckinpah's bloody masterpiece, in which a band of aging outlaws unable to adapt to changing times decides to make their final exit with something more than a whimper. The film is concerned with nothing less than the death of the Old West itself, a theme Peckinpah approached more gently in 'Ride the High Country'; here the director redefines Western mythology by embracing its most destructive impulses. The action has been choreographed into a terrible, exhilarating ballet, from William Holden's terse command during the opening credits ("if they move, kill 'em") to the cathartic fury of the final bloodbath, which invented a whole new vocabulary for screen violence. Peckinpah's macho code of honor, primitive sense of humor, and often sloppy sentiment can be hard to stomach, but the influence the film has had is undeniable, and its impact when seen today (in particular the final shoot-out) is only slightly diminished by our current over-saturation in MTV shock editing techniques.
Review of The Wild Bunch
