Apportez-moi la tête d'Alfredo Garcia

BRING ME THE HEAD OF ALFREDO GARCIA is Sam Peckinpah's most intimate and underrated film. I can think of few other films of this caliber that are as neglected or unsung.

A bizarre, sleazy film that has Peckinpah's signature trademarks - his romance with John Huston's TREASURE OF THE SIERRA MADRE, loners, Mexico at it's grittiest, slow-motion violence.

When I saw it the first few times, the film seemed to wander aimlessly at various stretches and Peckinpah's direction felt tired to me. Even though Peckinpah can still lift you two inches off the ground with his action sequences, it doesn't have the kinetic impulse running thru it like THE WILD BUNCH, STRAW DOGS, THE GETAWAY or CROSS OF IRON.

Knowing now what I do about his career, I suspect the tiredness was authentic, due to his battles with studio executives and a self- destructive life. This knowledge and the ensuing years of experiencing the picture, have taken on added meaning and enriched it for me. Bennie the down and out piano player, memorably played by Peckinpah's Bogart, Warren Oates, is a wonderful alter ego for the director.

Starring Oates and Isela Vega and a strong supporting cast which includes Gig Young, Robert Webber and Emilio Fernandez. The excellent score is by Peckinpah's best composer, Jerry Fielding.

It may take several viewings but sit back and relish the sad poetry of an authentic film artist, Sam Peckinpah.

It kills me the way the user comments on the IMDb are so often flooded with basic storyline information and/or outright spoilers. (i.e., "Warren Oates plays Benny, a drunken blah blah blah.") Everybody wants to be the next Roger Ebert (though God knows why.) "Bring Me The Head of Alfredo Garcia" is a title custom-designed to SAY ALL THAT NEEDS TO BE SAID. Tell me THAT title, tell me Warren Oates is in it, and I'm there. Granted, it's been a good 30 years, so some of the particulars of the story have leaked out. But read any other comments here, and you risk knowing more than you should the first time out with this one.

This movie flattened me. Desperation and flies, lots of flies. Yes, Peckinpah's films are violent. When I was a little kid in the early 70s, way before I was allowed to see movies like this, I knew of Peckinpah's reputation. Now I see that the violence herein is a total smokescreen, a sign of the times, a way to sell movie tickets. Human emotion is where these films are really at.

Peckinpah was Jim Thompson with a camera, and he told some great stories in a maverick style. Today's pre-fab, "hip" postmodern filmmakers are not worthy of a brutal, bizarre tale such as this. Sure, Kill Bill was a lot of fun - but the viewer hovers safely on the perimeter, like one flipping noncommittally (if enthusiastically) through the pages of a comic book. You will not be able to view Bring Me The Head of Alfredo Garcia with such entertainment-value indifference. You'll be up all night typing (like me), or drinking, or doing whatever it is you do when your head is reeling from a true cathartic viewing experience.

There was probably no greater director in the U.S. from 1969-1974 than Sam Peckinpah. He made seven films, ranging from classics (The Wild Bunch) to superior genre pics (The Getaway). And before his career began sliding, he had one more masterpiece in him: Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia. This is the story of one man's alcohol-fueled journey into dissolution and redemption and a really strange film. Warren Oates plays Benny, a piano player cajoled by a pair of men into finding Alfredo's head. See, Alfredo impregnated the daughter of a vicious landowner, and now he wants him dead. But this isn't really what the film is about. It's more about Benny, and how his journey costs him everything. Warren Oates is wonderful as Benny, and there are some great darkly comic moments between him and the head. And this is one of Michael Medved's 50 worst movies of all time - what more of a recommendation do you require? Seriously, this is a great film.

First, I'm sure everyone commenting on this film has seen the documentary on Peckinpah, and the comments made by the film critics regarding this film. If I may quote one of the critics, and I'm sure you all agree "It's the one film of Peckinpah's that everyone tries to imitate". Even Tarantino does to some degree. I have issues with Quentin Tarantino from a cinematic and artistic point of view, but that is another review. Warren Oates' performance was flawless, as he actually assumes the identity Of Sam Peckinpah as a gesture of appreciation for gracing him with his first starring vehicle.

Warren Oates was taking Sam's journey for him, as Sam looked from behind the lens. This movie was Peckinpah at his best and his worst at the same time. The old Peckinpah themes are there; Mexico is the final frontier, where one can continue to be what he once was in a changing world, but eventually Mexico begins to change as well. As I said in my review of "Junior Bonner" (be sure to check it out, and get back to me)progress is the main antagonist in the lives of Peckinpah's characters.

Junior Bonner and Bennie (Oates' Character) have a common foe, the twentieth century, which is why we find Bennie in Mexico. The chance to improve his situation, and establish a solid relationship with his hooker girlfriend (played with tough sincerity by Isela Vega) arrives at a time in Bennie's life when he least expects it, but it's not as easy as it is set out to be. All he has to do is bring this head to "El Hefe", and at the last minute BAM!! Bennie grows a conscience. Along the way he loses his woman, and then just goes nuts, thus revealing "The Diseased Soul of Sam Peckinpah".

My favorite scene is actually the picnic, where Elita and Bennie discuss their future. Elita begs Bennie to ask her to marry her, he does and she begins to weep. The simple fact that he says it is a tender moment, and shows how the slightest thing can arouse a woman's emotions. Jerry Fielding's musical score, which successfully created the mood and atmosphere for "Straw Dogs" (my all time favorite Peckinpah film) is present, but very muted. Still, this may be the best scene of the film.

Sam Peckinpah finally had complete control to dictate the direction of this film; Free from the money men, and left to his own devices in Mexico where he felt at home. A lot of people say that Pat Garret and Billy the Kid was the last Peckinpah masterpiece, but I think Alfredo Garcia was the last one. It throws you off at the beginning with the horses, then all of a sudden a Corvette screeches by; This is the paradox that really signifies that "The West" is over, bringing Sam Peckinpah and his love for the west full circle.

The critics literally hated this film, but 30 years later because of it we have a Martin Scorcese, a Robert Rodriguez, and a Quentin Tarantino (yeah) to name a few, as well as achieving underground cult status. I'm proud to call "Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia" one of my favorite films.

It is my humble opinion that Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia comes as close to capturing the maddening drive of man as any movie. That is to say that it sits at the same table as the greats, perhaps across the way from Citizen Kane or Raging Bull. If you contest this it is perhaps only because the film is not as beautiful, not as magnificent, as the rest of its ballpark. I would argue that that is partially the point.

Bennie's quest is stripped to its core so that the brutality of the film is expressive of Bernie himself. There is not a violent film with more validity for its actions than this one, it is the maddening human mind which causes deaths here. Peckinpah shows us everything that is important in this man's life and then shows us what a man is capable of doing once all that is taken away. The difference between this film and other similar films is perhaps that the movie has such humble beginnings. We build ourselves inside of Bennie. When we first meet him he is casually and happily playing the piano, quietly dreaming of settling into a different kind of love. We share a quiet picnic with him, witness his wedding proposal.

Perhaps also there has never been a chaotic killing spree that has seemed this environmental. While usually the hero goes on a rampage in a way that is appropriately heroic itself, Bennie is no hero. He is a man forced into a situation by the world around him, as it seems he is always forced into situations. Since he is never the man he wants to be it seems natural that he would become the kind of man that is the amalgamation of love and hate.

All the emotion a movie in this genre could handle.