When AFI top 100 movies are mentioned, a lot of adjectives could come to mind: great, prestigious, accomplished, old, stuffy.
Yet, one adjective that very few people would go to is “badass.” I mean, it’s hard to put Swing Time or The Sound of Music into that category.
Still, though, there are many that do have that quality. We have action movies on that list along with horror movies, gangster movies, and movies with characters who don’t take crap from anyone (I’m looking at Norma Desmond).
And then we have this movie, a movie that is so badass, that it inspired many other badass movies that have made this list. It’s one that many other directors of this genre (of course, I’m talking about the genre of “badassdom”) look back upon fondly, and I think we would be without many of those movies without this one.
So this week I am talking about 1969’s The Wild Bunch, written by Walon Green and directed by Sam Peckinpah.
The message of this film is said explicitly in an exchange between Pike and Dutch, when Pike says
“It’s his word.”
Dutch then responds with “It ain’t what counts, it who you give it to.”
Dutch’s words seem to be the bedrock of this film.
So much of the mess the characters get into happens because Thorton gives his word to the wrong people. He’s driven by not wanting to get arrested and probably a little resentment from Pike’s word to him following the knock on the door, “relax, it’s just the champagne we ordered,” being false, so he gives his word to an unethical man and works with an inept crew.
Pike does his best to keep his word to his crew, which is why they’re often to get themselves out of their bad situations. He supports them and is willing to make a sacrifice in order to get Angel back. Unfortunately, he also gave his word to the wrong people, resulting in Angel’s death and ultimately his own demise.
At the end, Thorton finally gives his word to the right people again, as he teams off with Freddie, and they wind up surviving the ordeal together.
So much of The Wild Bunch is about how a good group is so much stronger than an individual.
This goes against the grain of typical westerns, as so often there’s a lone hero, who’s often fighting and beating groups of bandits.
Right from the beginning of the film, we see the strength of a group, as a bunch of ants are able to take down a scorpion.
Because Thorton is with such an incompetent group and Pike is with such a strong one, Pike is able to evade Thorton’s efforts again and again, no matter what kind of advantages they have or surprises that they’re able to gain.
It’s at the moments that the wild bunchers are at odds with each other that they seem to fail the most.
In meta ways the making of this film is so strong because of this unity between the real wild bunch: Holden, Borgnine and Peckinpah.
The film takes place in an era after the wild west but before we’ve moved away from the wild west. This is why we have horses still as well as early incarnations of the automobile.
And similarly, this movie was made between westerns of old, and the newer films that have inspired by westerns. This film wouldn’t have existed without those earlier movies, but so many movies we have today from Tarantino, the Coens, and S. Craig Zahler wouldn’t have existed without this one.
It’s brave, going to extremes of gore and violence, it’s smart, offering a lot of commentary, it’s relentless, and it pays homages.
It honors movies of old while also being it’s own thing, proudly bringing the adjective “badass” to the AFI list.
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