Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia
by Sam Peckinpah
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Actor: Gig Young, Helmut Dantine, Isela Vega, Robert Webber, Warren OatesDirector: Sam Peckinpah
Brand: Sony
Producer: Helmut Dantine
Cinematographer: Álex Phillips Jr.
Writer: Sam Peckinpah
Producer: Gordon T. Dawson
Writer: Gordon T. Dawson
Producer: Martin Baum
Writer: Frank Kowalski
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled); French (Subtitled); English (Original Language); Spanish (Original Language)
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.85:1
Running Time: 112 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2005-03-22
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: MGM (Video & DVD)
DVD Reviews of Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia
DVD Review: A disappointing but watchable Peckinpah
Summary: 3 Stars
I have only heard good things about this movie - some have called it Peckinpah's classic, and I've heard about how much Peckinpah himself was happy with how the film came out, and how much effort he had put into its making. Upon first watching - and even a second one - I saw it as a bit of a letdown. I wouldn't call it a bad movie, but I could not share the same glorified sentiments as other Peckinpah fans.
The film opens with a rich Mexican land baron calling for the head of the Alfredo Garcia, the man who impregnated his daughter. Cut to a caravan of cars pouring out of his compound, making one expect a ton of people are going to be after this guy. (in the end, it turns out to be about four people) Two American guns-for-hire searching for Alfredo Garcia meet an American bartender who happens to know Garcia. It turns out that Garcia used to be a lover of his prostitute girlfriend, (Elita) and now the bartender, Bennie, (played by Warren Oates) is hired by the other Americans to bring them Alfredo's head. Elita knows where Alfredo is, so Bennie has her tag along for the road trip.
This is where the film really lost me a bit. For nearly an hour we watch a combination of Bennie and Elita talking about their future life where everything will be happy, then a bizarre scene where American bikers come out of nowhere and try to rape Elita, and then scenes of them arguing back and forth and loving one another within a few seconds. Sometimes it works - that scene in which Bennie goes to the grieving Elita in the shower and tells her, without provocation, "I love you," was a good scene. Others, like the long sequence at the tree, are overdrawn. One reason is they give away pretty much what is going to happen, which is when Elita is killed by other bounty hounters at the film's middle mark. It's an unwritten rule of movies: if a man tells his wife/girlfriend/lover "I love you" or "You look beautiful" within the first thirty minutes, it's almost guaranteed she's going to die. As a result, when the tragic event happens all the audience can really do is shrug and say, "Wow, didn't see that coming..." This was, to me, a really weak bit of character development for a man who could make characters in "The Wild Bunch" say a lot about themselves with just a facial expression. Likewise, the Kris Kristofferson scene was just bizarre. Besides the fact I don't know where two gnarly American bikers in the middle of Mexico came from, it was dragged on and ultimately served no purpose. You might argue, "It develops the relationship between Elita and Bennie," but the current conflict of find Alfredo Garcia (which Elita knows will only end badly but Bennie believes will make them richer) should have been enough to develop their character. It did nothing except drag the movie on for ten more minutes and add a tiny bit of character development we could have frankly lived without.
The real highlight of the film is near the end, in which Warren Oates has a lot of external thinking and begins having conversations with the head. I have to admit that the real pleasure I got with the film was with Warren Oates in this role. He does a fantastic job, and really makes the movie worth watching. Supposedly he was doing an impersonation of Peckinpah himself, wearing Peckinpah's clothes and sunglasses, but either way he gave Bennie some depth. Most of the other characters, with the exception of Elita (Isela Vega did an equally good job in her role) and perhaps El Jefe the land baron, are not as well developed. The two gunmen who lead Bennie to their superiors do that, disappear for an hour, then appear out of nowhere for some bizarre reason, kill off Alfredo Garcia's family, and then are killed off themselves by Bennie. I might also add that Peckinpah's trademark action just feels forced, especially near the end. When Bennie kills El Jefe's guards it's quite laughable: four or five men armed with rifles and shotguns apparently miss Bennie who is standing in one spot, yet he kills them all with a pistol, even after some have fired two rounds at him. In truth, most of the action scenes feel like someone else is directing this movie and either trying to rip off or spoof Sam Peckinpah. The only real scene of action that felt like it had the mark of Peckinpah (in terms of timing and editing) was when Bennie kills the two gunmen's superiors. Along with the weaker-than-usual character development, I could have never guessed that this film had Sam Peckinpah behind the camera. I hate to say it, but like a lot of critics who saw it back in the 1970's I began to reconsider my opinion of Peckinpah as a director as well.
In some ways, I was surprised and not surprised by my initial opinion. I was surprised because I had heard so many good things about this movie. The wikipedia article says this film is "the consummation of the themes present in all of Peckinpah's films - the conflict between honor and the necessity of survival in a dishonorable world, the dangers of vengeance and greed, the nature of human violence, and the self-destructive tendencies of modern masculinity." I was not surprised because when you study history's greatest directors you realize their pet projects - those films which they love the most - never turn out for the better. Akira Kurosawa's "The Idiot" was hours long and forced to be edited, and in the end cannot be considered one of his best works. Orson Welles "The Magnificent Ambersons" did not turn out the way he wanted and in the end became too unbearable to watch even for him. Perhaps what brings about this movie's faults is the fact that Peckinpah made it too personal, and tried to add too much of himself and what he believed in there. As a result, little attention was given to character development, storyline, or continuity.
The special features for the DVD include the original trailer and a commentary. The commentary has the same Peckinpah historians who did "The Wild Bunch" DVD. As with that movie (which I loved) they overanalyze everything. I nearly stopped listening to it on two occassions: once when they called Warren Oates knocked out on the ground was a symbolic fetal position, and once when they said him talking to the head was the same caliber as Hamlet. There was a third occassion, when they said the movie's ending was like the 60's counterculture being destroyed, that I wanted to turn it off, but by then the movie was over. Yet even then, I sincerely wanted to jump in there and, in the vein of Billy Madison, say to them, "At no point in your rambling, incoherent commentary were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. I am now dumber for having listened to it."
I can see by other reviews that a lot of die-hard Peckinpah fans love this film, and maybe I am being too harsh on some points. Another reviewer said that people either love this movie or hate it - well, I didn't hate it, I was just a bit disappointed. After being introduced to Peckinpah with "Cross of Iron" and growing fond of him with "The Wild Bunch," I was expecting more from what many regarded as his "masterpiece."
Description of Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia
Some people will do anything for a million dollars even if it means killing anyone who gets in their way! Written and directed by OscarÂ(r) nominee* Sam Peckinpah and starring Academy AwardÂ(r) winner** Gig Young, Warren Oates, Robert Webber, Kris Kristofferson and the seductively beautiful Isela Vega, Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia is a gritty classic that vibrates with explosive action and nail-biting tension. When a Mexican land baron puts a million dollars on the head of the man who seduced his daughter, two money-hungry men (Young and Webber) recruita small-town bartender (Oates) to help them do their dirty work. But their tequila-fueled trek across the desolate Mexican frontier grows more intense, gruesome and bloody with every savage murder they leave in their wake! *1969: Original Screenplay, The Wild Bunch (With Walon Greenand Roy N. Sickner) **1969: Supporting Actor, They Shoot Horses, Don't They?Bestsellers in DVD
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