| | | The Original Director's Cut.
Features: DVD, Widescreen, Aspect Ratio 2.40:1, English, French, Spanish, Subtitled
By any standard, director Sam Peckinpah's film The Wild Bunch, a powerful tale of hangdog desperados bound by a code of honor, rates as one of the all-time greatest Westerns. In 1994 it was restored to a complete, pristine condition unseen since its July 1969 theatrical debut - and this digitally remastered anamorphic transfer showcases it to renewed blood-and-thunder effect. Watch William Holden, Ernest Borgnine, Robert Ryan and more great stars saddle up for the roles of a lifetime.
"An American masterpiece." Chicago Tribune
"Rivetingly realistic...marvelously scripted." George Powell, San Francisco Examiner
"...a landmark Western and a good, thoughtful, rousing adventure besides." John J. Puccio, DVD Town
"...world class, an authentic American classic." Leonard Maltin's Movie & Video Guide
"...one of the great defining moments of modern movies." Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times
Editor's Note
As a counterpoint to the heroic horde of THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN, the aging gunmen of Sam Peckinpah's masterpiece break the very laws of honor which bind them in this bloody and meditative tale of the American West--widely considered to be the self-conscious nail in the coffin of the genre. William Holden, Robert Ryan, and Ernest Borgnine star as the leaders of a grizzled crew of Texan bandits who ride to Mexico, where, one by one, they are unceremoniously slaughtered by a Mexican revolutionary.The western, a genre steeped in legend and the concept of loyalty, was a dying breed when Sam Peckinpah unleashed this amoral and violent opus. Along with BONNIE AND CLYDE, it ushered in a new breed of Hollywood film, depicting a harsh reality where lines between right and wrong became blurred. Peckinpah brilliantly used aging Western stars such as Ryan and Holden to convey this passing of the cinematic torch. The film brought issues of violence and morality in movies to the forefront of American film criticism. Instead of appreciating the film as a critique of brutal violence, many critics responded by rejecting what they saw as a superfluous spectacle of dead bodies.
Plot Summary
Pike Bishop is the leader of a small clan of outlaws confronting the closing American frontier. The year is 1913, and the prairie crew, disguised as US soldiers, ride into a dusty Texas town and rob the railway office. A bloodbath ensues with innocent people caught in the crossfire. The gang leaves town but the railroad boss' hired gunmen pursue them. | |Escaping to Mexico, the posse joins forces with the merciless anti-revolutionary dictator Mapache, agreeing to hijack a US ammunitions train. When Mapache double-crosses them and tortures youngest group member Angel upon discovering he's a revolutionary, the gang is caught between bounty hunters and Mapache's troops.
| Features | Audio: English Dolby Digital Plus 5.1 Surround Sound | | Audio: French, Spanish Dolby Digital Stereo | | Dubbed: French, Spanish | | Interactive Menus | | Scene Selection | | Subtitles: English, French, Spanish | | This Is An HD-DVD Made For HD-DVD Format Players Which Produce Higher Quality Picture & Sound |
| Technical Info
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Release Information
| | Studio: Warner |
| Release Date: 9/25/2007 |
| Running Time: 145 minutes |
| Original Release Date: 1969 | | Catalog ID: 114267 | | UPC: 00085391142676 | | Number of Discs: 1 |
Audio & Video
| | Original Language: English | | Available Audio Tracks: English | | Video: Color |
Aspect Ratio | | Widescreen 2.40:1 |
| Cast & Crew
| Awards |
Nominee (1970) | | | Oscar, Jerry Fielding, Best Music, Original Score for a Motion Picture (not a Musical) | | | Oscar, San Peckinpah, et. al., Best Writing, Story and Screenplay Based on Material Not Previously Published or Produced |
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| | Professional Reviews | USA Today
"...There's never been a greater movie about loyalty among men than this..." 03/07/1995 p.4DEntertainment Weekly
"...Engrossing entertainment." -- Rating: B 08/18/1995 p.65 Variety
"...Virtually every character in THE WILD BUNCH is a fully fleshed-out, complex portrait of humanity....It's a tale that is just as important and pertinent as ever..." 02/27/1995 Chicago Sun-Times
"..It represents its set of sad, empty values with real poetry....Seeing this restored version is like understanding the film at last..." 03/17/1995 p.33 Entertainment Weekly
"[A] flawless masterpiece....Peckinpah refined the use of slo-mo violence and graphic bloodshed here, but the deeper artistry was how such actions revealed character..." 01/20/2006 p.54 Ultimate DVD
5 stars out of 5 -- "It's not light, it's not trivial: it hits you hard, and leaves a lasting impression..." 07/01/2006 p.112 Empire
"Vital, visionary and very, very violent....That it still seems relevant after 40 years is testament to its uncompromising power." 03/01/2008 144-145 ReelViews 10 of 10
"Violence comes in many shapes, sizes, and forms. Twenty-six years ago, when Sam Peckinpah's The Wild Bunch was first released, it caused a stir because of its gritty, uncompromising style. The deaths in this film are neither sterile nor heroic. When a gun is fired, the result is inevitably messy. In many ways, especially in its determination not to glorify bloodshed, The Wild Bunch shares key themes with Clint Eastwood's Unforgiven -- only this film came twenty-three years earlier. A classic in its original theatrical cut, The Wild Bunch is nevertheless improved with eleven minutes of footage restored...For anyone who doubts the importance of The Wild Bunch, this new version is recommended viewing -- an opportunity to witness a style that has influenced film makers from Scorsese to Tarantino. Not only does The Wild Bunch illustrate Peckinpah's mastery of his medium, but it presents a story that is effective on nearly every level: the emotional, the visual, and the visceral." - James Berardinelli
Reel.com 10 of 10
"The Wild Bunch became famous for its outsized violence (in one of the DVD's accompanying documentaries, wardrobe supervisor Gordon Dawson notes that it took 12 days to film the climactic shootout, and that while there were 350 uniforms for extras, ""6,000 [were] blown up,"" necessitating a near assembly line of costume repairs), but it is about so much more than a high body count. This is one of the best of the revisionist Westerns. There is no romanticism here, instead it perfectly illustrates the ""chaos, hostility, and murder"" that Werner Herzog so eloquently ascribes to the world in his recent documentary Grizzly Man...Yet, even in this harsh environment, friendship and loyalty somehow survive -- even though people do not always act on it, and when they do, the price paid for it can be high...The Wild Bunch begins and ends in carnage, but what starts out as pure nihilism takes on the air of self-sacrifice by its final act." - Pam Grady
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