Westerns rarely aspire above the level of good guys vs. bad guys. This is an expectation and, in most cases, a given. When Sam Peckinpah wrote The Wild Bunch with Walon Green, however, he brought another level to the table. By 1969, the Vietnam War was a topic on everyone's minds and Peckinpah wanted his film to touch on these concerns too. By making the lead characters a group of outcast cowboys, he was able to symbolize the alienation that American soldiers were experiencing half a world away in Vietnam. And in depicting violence and crime in a less than flattering light, he made The Wild Bunch into more than just a shoot 'em up, good guys vs. bad guys flick... although it works very well on that level too.
The title refers to a group of six grizzled robbers from Texas at the end of their rope. It's 1913, and with the advent of the invention of the automobile and the airplane, and with the First World War just around the corner, the days of the Wild Wild West are rapidly drawing to a close. Led by the nefarious Pike Bishop (William Holden), the gang refuses to step down quietly from their so-called professions, and the movie opens with another of their armed robbery attempts. This time, bounty hunters are ready for them, and after a chaotic shoot-out in which innocent civilians become casualties, they discover they've been had when their loot amounts to nothing more than a bag full of washers. Hot on the trail of the bandits, Pike's former best friend Thornton (Robert Ryan) rounds up a posse to bring the men in, dead or alive.
Included in the bunch is Dutch (Ernest Borgnine), Sykes (Edmond O'Brien), the appropriately named Angel (Jaime Sanchez) and the Gorch Brothers (Warren Oates and Ben Johnson). These men abide by stiff whisky, loose women and loaded guns at all times. With low morale following the botched bank heist, they plot to rob a train, and after a highly suspenseful chase, they head to Mexico to sell the guns that were onboard to a shady businessman. An imminent double-cross occurs, Thornton's posse shows up, and the film concludes with one final bloodbath, after which even one of the supposed good guys ends up switching sides.
To say The Wild Bunch is violent is an understatement, but it is never immensely glorified the way it might be in a more standard Western. Filmed using a slew of techniques and tricks, it is kinetic and visually arresting in almost every scene. With numerous point of view shots, slow motion effects and rapid-fire editing, the gunfights are some of the best ever shot. There are strong echoes of Peckinpah's work here in the likes of Scorsese, John Woo, Quentin Tarantino and many others.
For William Holden, who had played edgy protagonists in the Bridge on the River Kwai, Sunset Blvd. and Sabrina, the role of Pike is another evolution in the anti-hero. Pike cares for the bunch as he would for a family, but he's still hard-nosed enough to shoot down women and children to save his own skin. Ernest Borgnine portrays Dutch as a simple but loyal gunman, and Edmond O'Brien is wonderfully off-putting as the senior thief.
With the conflicts between technology and tradition, the old and the new, and the hunter and the hunted, there's lots of symbolism in the movie. Some of it is a little too overt, but when using the format of a Western I guess it kind of has to be. The Wild Bunch has some quite moments but they are completely dominated by the high adrenaline showdown scenes. Bold, aggressive and creative, the film still offers much to the novice viewer, almost 35 years later. And when you consider the decline of Westerns in the 1970's and 1980's, it was ironically among the last of its kind in the genre.
